Beginner project ideas

[bbowers]

Our club has a couple of people wanting to start carving & we always struggle for project ideas for a beginner. I think it should be fairly simple so it can be done in a session or two & basically teach a person how to handle & use the tools. I'd be interested in anyone's suggestions on projects & especially pictures or patterns that we could use.
Thank you-
Barry

[mdallensr]

My instructor starts all newbies with four mandatory carvings, all in-the-round. The first is a very simple whale, then a dog, a cartoon road drunner, and finally a pig. Each figure stresses certain cuts. The whale is safe knife handling and proper rounding of a three dimensional carving. The dog introduces stop cuts, to get between the legs, again with a knife. The road runner continues with basic knife cuts and adds some gouge and V-tool cuts to put some detail in the carving. The pig focuses on end-grain carving and includes all of the previous cuts. We also learn that V-tool and knife cuts "commit", while outlining with veiners allows future movement and flexibility in placing features.

All newbies have to sit next to our instructor and he continually comments on safe carving. He showed us how to make our own thumb guard, and we got our own carving gloves. After my 15 years, and longer for some in our group, our instructor still reminds all of us about safe carving. Good luck. Mike

[Nomad]

A spoon is a good carving project for beginners.

[kdispoto]

I would suggest grabbing a pile of WCI or other magazines and let them start flipping pages.

[carverswoodshop]

i will have an easy star that you can make up on youtube very soon,, will do this as a project for my carverswoodshop luncheon may 9th, in morgantown pa,email me for more info, i will do both an 8 pointed star, or 12 pointed star,, well have it up soon , arleen
carverswoodshop@yahoo.com
YouTube - carverswoodshop's Channel
carverswoodshop

[carverswoodshop]

i have one of two videos clips up for this project the 8 point ..... that your welcome to use,, the second star is a 12 pointed star that will be up tomorrow enjoy arleen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJCTq_MrkH4

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Snowman is what I started with.

Dave

[forester21]

I just started carving this year. Everyone in the group I joined had to start with the same relief cutting. One side of the board is the person's initials (block letters). Around the edge of that side is alternating bars - one cut the next not. with squares in the corners. []IIIIIIII[]
The other side are 2 oak leaves.
By cutting this, I sure learned the difference not only in the grain direction, but in how the wood reacts even when cutting the same direction. The leaves taught depth and undercutting.

[bbowers]

Thanks for all the ideas. It's interesting to see what others started with. I found a old boot a carver gave me right after I had started carving. I think we'll give it a try. It should be a good exercise in using a knife & some other tool work. Hopefully it will hook his interest & we'll move on from there.
Thanks again-