[AlArchie]

If your first ones are this good, you will have some excellent work to show very shortly! thanks for posting the pics.

Al

[Nancy_G]

Mike-in-WV -- I've been looking at those red and white staffs again. I sure like those . That red and white design idea would make a mighty pretty Santa robe and be easy a pie to simply paint......but I'd love to hear the details of how you did it on a stick. That's all relief carving??? What kind of paint??

I'll show you my Santa robe just as soon as I get him done

Hi Mike and welcome to the group. Good work on those woodspirits. I especially like the Keeper of the keys.

[Bandaid]

Welcome Mike...great job on the carvings! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Mike-in-WV]

Nancy, The redish brown on the staffs is water based Cherry stain put on heavy with several coats. The white I wanted to look like real enamel but I had to go a little thicker than I wanted and lost some detail in the carvings. I used three coats of high gloss white enamel.Covered it all with several coats of semi gloss water based Poly.
The thing I like about color pencils is that you can apply shading to the nose or under the eyes and just lightly rub with your fingers to blend. Looks great on lips and around the eyes.
There is a carver out there that carves woodspirits only and leaves the bark on the staffs and all his spirits look like white porcelain but with all the detail. Don't know how he does it but it sure looks great.
Thank's again all for the compliments and the replys. I'll place some of my recent ones up to see when they are done. Mike

Hi Mike-in-WV;
You might try just 'bleaching' the wood to obtain the whiteness you desire, no paint.

[Kenny_S]

Great pieces Mike, thanks for sharing them with us. I do like the staff. Totally different than most but nice none the less.

[Ky_Whittler]

Hello Mike, Those wonderful white wood spirits are from the choice of wood in most cases.Dogwood and hickory and elm will give them to you almost every time. Sometimes hickory and elm will look like aged ivory after a while. I am experimenting with some sycamore right now. I'm checking whether it has to be cured for a long lentgh of time and coloring depending on fresh or aged a bit.

To find out if I can carve green or shorten cure time I simply cut them extra long and remove a few inches of bark from one end.If it cracks and splits after a few days behind my woodstove then It goes to the rafters in the shed for long slow curing. If it goes unchecked after ten days or so and weight is drastically reduced , I will go ahead and carve one. Devils club has already failed the green test. The sycamore is doing great, I intend to carve one of them this week and see how she looks then. I am hoping it too will look like ivory.

Try this in your own neck of the woods and see what you can find to carve. Whittler

[Mike-in-WV]

Thanks Guys, I tried the bleaching on Cherry and on River birch and it works but what ever this guy used really look's like some sort of paint.
I have tried Dogwood, Poplar, Sasafrass, Sycamore, River Birch , Mayple and a few others. Some chip to easy for me but the Cherry and the River Birch are fairly fast driers and carve great. Mayple drys fast but it can be be a pain to carve depending on where it was harvested, Mayple taken from close to water is real grainie(Spelling?)
I would like to try a few others and now is the time to cut them because the sap has stoped flowing and by cutting now the wood will be just right in the spring.We have some trees hear called Red Bub that I would like to try. I'm lucky in that I live so far out in the sticks that we have to have sun light pumped in because the woods are so thick and we are on several thousand acres here in WV.
Just finished carving some Diamond Willow from Alaska that my brother gave me and it was a real pain to carve the wood spirits in , Chipped real easy , maybe to dry. Mike

[2leftfeet]

Love the pics! the northern panhandle has a carvers guild at oglebay in wheeling... we have a show at the pine room over labor day weekend... so if you ever are in wheelin' stop in mondays from 6:00pm to ? or thursdays 9:00-noon

cya

stevo