Following a 2D pattern into 3D wood.

[Robson Valley]

I jointed some cedar and glued it up so there will be a double-wide strip of sapwood right up the centerline of a lilypad dish with an upturned edge. 8" x 8" x 2". The flat floor of the dish was inlet 1" (that was the easy part.)

I have laid out both the front and side views of the frog that holds up the lilypad dish on the straight sides of the block. No bandsaw yet. That was another easy part.
Here's what I have called the "impasse" in most of my carvings: I don't know how to get to the deep features when the pattern drawing gets destroyed in the preliminary carving. For example, frogs have quite a pointy snout, the eyes are set well back on the head.

What's the tip, the trick, the technique to keep track of where those eyes will be, buried so far back in the wood? In the past, I've drilled 1/8" holes that far into the wood. Bottom of the hole = front of the eye. Is that what everybody does?

[pallin]

Among relief carvers the practice seems to be a matter of defining levels of the carving, then cutting down to the deepest level, etc. Do a search in the Chip & Relief forum on "Levels."

[Robson Valley]

Pallin: GREAT gallery!
The levels strategy is good for relief carving, it makes logical sense. I need to go around the corner, from the front to the side. How far do I indent the sides without making the front impossible to render? And the reverse?

My puzzle seems to be that the original drawing (front and sides) gets so chopped up in the carving process that locating significant features is really difficult. As the piece becomes "rounder and rounder," the drawings no longer make much sense.
Am I trying to carve too fast and not planning enough?

[Abbott]

Hi Robson Valley,

Although I'm a new carver. I have done a high relief that brought much pf the carving out of the wood, as a stand alone piece connected only by a small threat of connected wood. I ran into a similar situation and found two strategies that helped me in the process. The first was that I did not start or use a 2D line drawing, other than a basic sketch and instead of cutting the piece out of the wood, I focused on "shaping" around the piece and drew locate lines for each unique feature. Each time I would interrupt the lines with any significant carving, I would leave at least the ends of the lines in place, so I could redraw the locate line again, between them. When I would interrupt the line where the ends of the locate lines were, I would leave enough to use as index points, so they could be redrawn if need be. Between using penciled-in Index lines and shaping the piece as a full unit going closer and closer to the finished look I wanted, position and relationships based on relative position was easier to maintain. I hope this helps. I also took the time to sketch on paper my design and once done I looked at indexing points, as a way to keep relationship positions in place. Good Luck

[Robson Valley]

OK Abbott, let me see if I've got this right: mallet on one hand, gouge in the other hand and a pencil in the other hand. I spent yesterday afternoon doing 1:1 drawings, trying to imagine the piece half-done.

I do understand what you mean about restoring form lines form the ends, then the middle, as so forth. Going to be a lot of back-and-forth from the right side to the left side. I have two marking gauges that I can set for little scratches. The top rim of the leaf/bowl is level, 1/4" wide still and unfinished. . . . I hope that I can "hang" a lot of L & R measurements from there.

[Robson Valley]

I got it! Abbott, thank you so much.
Key phrase to me in your post:". . . . leave at least the ends of the lines in place. . ."
As I needed to wrap the front and rear of the frog's body around 90 degree corners in the blank, why not START with line gaps which collapse as the carving goes into the block over time?
Have drawings I like. I'll cut them vertically to apply with gaps. "Xray vision" to see how the line ends merge as the carving goes in.
Got it.

[Abbott]

Cool. I wasn't sure if I was doing a good job in my description. The idea is maintaining some sort of indexing that remains constant or is re-indexed from a remain fragment. You got it. Hope it helps. Chissl, mallet and an occasional pencil.... ha ha ha