Carving Slump

[SlowMover]

Well, this has been a frustrating week for carving here at my house. I have started two caricatures and after a day on each of them, have messed up. On one guy I carved two really good hands (that is what I am working on mostly now, learning how to carve hands so all my guys don't have them in their pockets).....and then noticed that his arms are significantly different lengths....argggg!!!

I worked on him anyway, practicing faces and trying to refine ears more, doing some bolder steps than usual since it was already messed up.

I started another guy, and guess what..on day two of carving him....bad hands..Didn't leave enough wood for all five fingers or for the fingers to be wide enough to be in balance with the size of the carving. (see the thread on roughing out..that was my mistake, bad rough-out)

There goes four days of carving without a piece to show for it...but on the bright side..I did get some pracice in, and I do need practice.

I blame the slump on some issues with my elderly mother's health ( pretty much resolved and ok now..she had a fall Monday and banged up pretty good)...I have noticed in the past a huge tendency to screw-up when I am stressed or worried about something. I guess I am lucky I didn't cut myself or mess up a tool while I was carving distracted. The big thing about car accidents now is distraced driving...I tink that carries through to carving...lets stamp out distracted carving!! Seriously, I do suspect that a lot of injuries occur when folks are not really "into" the carving and could be prevented if we put the sharp toys way when we aren't 100% focused. I plan to start this policy today, and in fact put all my tools up and got on the computer since I was just getting frustrated.

I don't wish a run of bad luck on anyone, but it is also nice to know one is not alone in one's misery. If you have any stories of a slump or other misadventures from carving while distracted I would love to hear your story.

Wishing you all a great weekend and may you remain "slump-free"

[twymanok]

for me it seems to be hit and miss, if I am stressed, carving will help calm me down, allow me to focus on something else but there are times of high stress when I just have to put away the tools.

[Whittled Thumb]

I took some advice that Lynn had posted here once. He said that most carvers will throw away a project way to quick and not explorer their options and start on another. So every now and then I reach into my box and pull out some bunked projects that I thought were throwaways and come up with a pretty decent project. As for characters being proportionate, I think they should be out of whack a little, it makes them whimsical and more interesting to look at. It's your art and your biggest critic will be yourself. Give your throwaways another chance.

I will soon post one of my throwaways that turned out to be a pretty decent project

Carve On!

[mpounders]

Man, I mess up so much that I have been forced to learn how to either fix my mistakes or be more flexible in my design. If it was me, I would experiment in removing hands and arms on the bandsaw and replacing them! Hands are pretty easy to do, if sleeves are involved. You can drill out the sleeves and just carve new hands with long wrists to fit in the holes. That might work with your arms also?

[jimmy joe]

I too go back to carvings that didn't make the cut and come up with some interesting results the second time around . It sometimes tells me I am not taking it down enough in the rough out stage to begin with so it is a good learning experience . Also when you are working on a "throw away" you really have no pressure to not screw up and it is good to learn to carve that way anyway .

[SlowMover]

Mpounders...I usually carve small figures, these ones I erred on were 4 and 3 inches tall...hard to make seperate peieces or replace them at that size. I carved (am carving) them out the rest of the way, and using them for practice..they aren't horrible, but definatly not ones I would show to my carving club. I usually work around mistakes pretty successfully, but these errors were in my opinion un-fixable.....thats life, no big deal, just had me frustrated when I posted earlier. But I think the point of carving when distracted was a valid one...I will keep that in mind when I am working on something I really have some time invested on or if it is an especially good carving. I ave a lot of pieces that are "modified" from the original idea/patern, some of myy best ones in fact..keep on carving and you never know what will emerge.

Have a great weekend all!!!

[Rook]

Shoot, if I finished one tenth of my projects, I'd likely be the most common poster in the forum for finish carvings. I did one just today. 3.5" tall (or therebouts) manly man, lantern jawed, looks like he'd be association with some job swingin' a sledge. He looks like a rugged hombre who could could certainly swing a hammer with the best.

Screwed up his mouth, probably won't post it. It was my first attempt at doing a 'knife only' carving like Gene does so well. In my stuff, I screw up a LOT. I'll run into some grain that's not good, it'll go flaky and I'll lose detail. I'll let the knife slip and lose a nose. Just plain miss the design of the piece. (In my defense, I'm not smart enough to mark the blasted blank, I need to do that more.)

I feel safe in saying that every carver here has screwed up pieces. I know for a fact I do. And, I'm sure I will again. And, to be perfectly honest, if I didn't have to really work at it to keep from making mistakes, I'd likely quit. Getting it right all the time, knowing before you start exactly what the finished piece would look like, that sounds like it could get boring rapidly.

Ya know what, I'm almost willing to share the blooper piece I did today, just so folks can compare their own booboos to mine, lol. It happens to us all. I'm still learning and don't really know what I'm doing, but I can see lots of other reasons for mistakes.

TJ.

[Rook]

Bit the bullet, swallowed my pride, and am posting a pic. Pardon the lack of quality, I didn't really feel like going full monty on the pic, just wanted to capture the essentials.

I think the hat is the best feature, after that, the wheels fell off. I'm sorely tempted here in an hour or two to get some good pics of it, ya can't even see the mouth mistakes too well.

[Josef]

Crikey, who doesn't have a bin full of failures if you are attempting new things from scratch? I have a yard full of disfigured cats which I won't be attempting again any time soon. I got a commission for a cat and after three attempts, with one turning out like a cross between a rat and Yoda, I finally had to say that I simply could not find a cat in the timber I had. Not a glorious moment for me I can tell you. Luckily for me she settled for another piece.

[LMiller]

To your point on safety... I, too, will put down the tools when I am either fatigued or not able to put full mental faculties into the use of sharp tools. It's a bit of a miracle that I can manipulate sharp tools with all of my mental faculties (grinning) so I don't tempt the Fates or invite Murphy along by getting them out when my mind isn't sharper than my tools.

I think those times are perfect for reading the messages in here of reviewing a Lynn Doughty video. Good time for capturing reference notes for a future carving as well.

Be safe.