Female log carving

[Irishman]

I shared this carvings a short time ago in its earlier stages. I was about to throw it on the wood pile given the cracking on one side of the face due to some irregular growth. You can see that I changed my mind and struggled around the cracking to finally finish her. The grain around the scarring was like carving a knot the whole time - very difficult. She's carved in birch as stands approximately 3.5 ft tall.
Patrick

[Sharon of the Dell]

Glad you didn't throw her out, because she's beautiful! I think the cracking adds character to her.

[gene-messer]

She mught have cracked Patrick .. but she is a beautiful piece .. the face is superb ..

just leave the crack there and rename it ...

great job

Gene

[slivers&dust]

hey Patrick, she is beautiful

[Jbarr]

Patrick this is a beautiful carving a natural flaw in the wood never takes away from a job well done!

[Colin-Partridge]

Hey Patrick kuddos to you for carrying on with the carving. I know how difficult that is to do when that happens. I learned a long time ago there is nothing you can do about it. All in all she is just fine I like her just the way she is. Funny that would happen on your first female carving though.
Thanks for sharing her
Colin

[doris]

oh what a disheartening crack,,,i would have give up, but i see how she seduced you to carve on. she became your best female carving you did so far. love the softness in her. nice :-)...interesting how you have let the region between brow and eye in so tooled, while she otherwise is rather smooth

[Rwenzoski]

Hi Patrick, A very nice carving there indeed! A little advice from my experiences with carving logs & trees. I have found that if you are to carve a crotch or wherever a branch exists there is the great risk of bark inculsions & most times you can tell how far the inclusion is going to result in going down into the log itself by the actual form of the junction of the branch or the crotch. If the crotch has a rounded bottom to it the inclusion some times is only as deep as you see but if the crotch is sharp as in you can actually see the bark inclusion going down into the log itself I have run into inclusions that go as much as 2' down on some of the larger logs. If you look at your pics I can see a fold of bark going down in between where the branch meets the main trunk & this "crack" your referring too is actually bark inclusion that formed as the tre was growing. These things are hard to read but gets easier with time & still resulted in a nice carving. Hope this helps if you can understand my explanations?
Thanks, Robbin

[Joy]

She is a beautiful female carving. Glad you stuck with it! Overall, she makes me feel sad when I look at her...(not because of the crack) as though she has had a tragedy in her life.

[Irishman]

I see from a number of you that the cracking or scarring appears OK, then I guess it was a good choice. My intension was not to complete the carving as it was designed as a demo piece for a fundraiser in our house.
Sharon, Gene, Tony, and Jbarr - thanks for your nice comments. I guess there is some beauty in this piece. She's definitely a unique carving with the scarring. Perhaps I should name her Shera, the Warrior Princess and go with the scar thing.
Colin - I think your too busy these days. This would probably be number 8 or 9 for me as female carvings go....but thanks on seeing the good in this peice. You need to slow down and get on this site more often my friend
Doris - I saw this affect on another female carving somewhere so I thought I would try it. Her eyes are quite large and this effect seems to exaggerate it further I think.
Joy - Perhaps the tradegy is something I should "play up" with this carving. Great idea, thanks.
Robbin - you explained the "inclusion" very well, thank you. I was quite surprised how far it travelled. The crack seems to be a texture that reminds me of bark. I'll have to keep my eyes open for this with future log carvings. Thank you for explaining it for me.
Patrick