[Anthony Filetti]

..to elaborate more on proportion in caricatures...

...when picking a subject to carve you should find the dominant features and exaggerate them and at the same time study your subject for diminished features and diminish their proportion in the carving as well...I usually make a list of the items I want to emphasize on a carving being items to exaggerate and items to diminish...

...i agree w/ Lynn on the womans expression its spot on, but as Mitchell said the heads appear squarish...the rounding factor is something that all carvers face and conquer and usually the problem is related to fear and not cutting deep enough...if I was to train a new carver from scratch the beginning lessons would be to practice all types of cuts and to practive carving spheres. The practice of carving spheres gives you the ability to round and at the same time learn to work "with the grain"...

[Doug Ridley]

I think the neck on both is too long. The cap is a copy of a Red Man chewing tobacco cap like I have myself.
Lynn the motivation for this carving is Mary and me doing our work which we sell to the Paducah Quilt Museum gift shop. It was given to the museum curator as a going away present when she changed jobs as a memento of us and our work. The floor actually looks pretty good but you can't tell from the pic.

[Thomp]

Doug,

with me being a Out standing ex-pert {EX as in use to be able} and {Spurt meaning i spurt off a lot of things i dont know nothing about}
an' i can usually be found out, standing in the field scratching my head & fanny wondering where im suppose to be? .
or what i should be doing.. other than lost in space and time...

For what my opinion is worth,
i think you once mentioned your carving experience is of only a couple - few years,

now if this is among some of the carvings you did in your first year i see nothing wrong with it at all, AS you have excelled leaps and bounds since this was carved..

in the scene your eye for the details you captured would go by other artist carvers with the same experience level, (not kissing up or being overly nice here just honest)

my first carvings was a teekee god and i forgot one of its eyes..

in your scene the sweet granny and elderly man are clipping wings, or plucking but the birds dont look dead, in fact the old man seams to be holding a pigeon or dove due to the tail shape
and his jug of liquid corn beneath his leg on the ground. her expression might be that she just discovered his jug, as she is looking pretty tight jawed.
her bird looks dead or sick, (laying on its side) the angle of the shot dont show her hands good but i think she is holding the foot or a knife its orange in color...

Leonardo divinchi (sp) sketch books were filled with distinct faces, he was interested in the normal person even verging on the hideous, with overly sized features no teeth, shrunken jaw lines chins nearly on the nose etc.. showing real people deeply illustrated wrinkles not just the select pretty few..

i feel you did a good job on the old man his neck is a little thick but he is aged crooked with hard work and time it appears to me...

dont know if this applies but grandma had a hen she healed through a chicken sickness, that jumped in her lap every evening, while grandma churned the butter the hen laid an egg in her lap... this woman makes me think of that story