New Wood Spirit

North Wind · #1 10-01-2007, 11:38 PM

Decided to shelve the caricature carving for a while and go back to wood spirits. Just finished this last night. This is done in Diamond Willow. I have a good source of this, as we live on the Missouri River in Montana, so this makes good carving medium for me to practice on (besides it carves nicely).

GaryMc · #2 10-02-2007, 12:08 AM

Nice spirit North, being in Montana you ought to get you some Cottonwood bark, easy to carve and makes great spirits. Keep it up anyway.
GaryMc

slather · #3 10-02-2007, 05:17 AM

I like your staff Northwind. I'm kind of partial to diamond willow myself , its handy here to , grows right in the back yard.

Al

http://picasaweb.google.com/al.hillis/WOODCARVINGSMINE

Irishman · #4 10-02-2007, 06:49 AM

Have never carved willow before but sure would like to try based on your latest project. Your staff character could pass for one of the apostles. Great job.
Patrick

Joy · #5 10-02-2007, 07:20 AM

Nice stick. Wish I had some diamond willow to practice on

tucker1931 · #6 10-02-2007, 07:35 AM

Great looking spirit, nice job. What the heck is diamind willow. I live on the banks of a fairly large river here in Ontario. There are lots of willow trees that have bark that looks very much like the cottonwood only not as thick. It seems very soft to me. Is that the stuff?

stickman · #7 10-02-2007, 08:16 AM

Very nice!

North Wind · #8 10-02-2007, 01:07 PM

I have some Cottonwood bark, and have worked with it a little bit; and it's true--it's easy to carve. But it seems to have a tendency to split on the grain real easy. I have read in a few places that if you wet it down and wrap it for 24 hours, it's a little easier to work with.

As for "what is diamond willow?", it is a form of a willow tree which has a tendency for small branches to break off the main stem, and where it has a place where a limb used to be, it forms an indented diamond pattern. Will post some pics later.

Joy, if you will e-mail me your address, I will ship you down a few pieces to play with. maybe we could work out a trade for some indigenous wood in your area.

North Wind · #9 10-02-2007, 02:35 PM

Picture of diamond willow attached as promised

tucker1931 · #10 10-02-2007, 05:41 PM

Dang, that's purty, I assume that's taken from a dead tree. Is there any way to identify it with the bark still on it? The piece you show has obviously been worked, did you enhance the diamonds as you did it?
Thanks, hope you can answer all the questions from a dumb old man. You see, I live on the banks of a fairly LARGE river and there are a whole lot of willows around. I was hoping to try my hand at some canes and sticks