Planning a carving

[Tom-H]

Prior to starting a carving, does anyone visualize the step-by-step sequence of carving the piece? Or at least in their mind, goes through the specific process of roughing out the piece prior to carving the finishing details?

Tom H

[Merle Rice]

Yep I do Tom. I have to do that in order to get in the mood to carveit. It seems to peak my interest. Merle

[Soggy]

I'm with Merle on that one. I'll sometimes mull a mental picture of the carving for days before I actually transfer it to paper and then to wood. Most of my carvings are hunting/fishing related and are usually ment to poke fun at some of my friends............
Wayne

[pjkenben]

Hmmm as a beginner I have never heard anyone suggest a step by step. Guess I just figured you played around with the knife and got a finished product. This gives me a knew vision. Thanks!

[golfballcarver]

When i'm planning to make a new carving i draw it out . All 5 sides left,right,front,back,top and they are near me as i carve to refer to them

[torpidhummer]

I like to plan the expression,attitude,and habitat of the raptors I want to carve,
by going through magnitudes of of raptor photos references that I have collected.

Oscar

[Robson Valley]

Lots of sketches and lots of pondering before I get to a drawing that I really like that gets transferred to the wood. Oh, got wood? Got wood that's big enough? (Usual answer is NO.)
OK, how big do I have? Had to split some cedar, plane an edge, cut & glue to get something big enough. Start carving only to discover that another inch in each direction would have been really nice.
Go to the photocopy center to scale the drawing down is a good fix.
Maybe make some templates so the right and left sides match. Maybe use a breadknife & styrofoam to rough out a body part from the drawing to see how it really looks.
a) all of the above
b) some of the above
c) none of the above

[Tom-H]

I, like many of my Ol' friends wake up every hour at night. It is during these times that I will "think through" a carving. Most of the time I actually visualize carving the piece. I'll think through how I'll carve specific parts of the piece. If I am have a specific problem, which is often, I'll visualize how I might solve the problem. Some times this might involve trying a different tool, a different sequence of cuts, or a different angle of a specific cut. I guess some call this virtual carving. I like to think it helps me.

Tom H

[gtech]

I normally start the carvings with an overall idea in my head or on paper. Then I stop when I need to think about more details. Sometimes, it comes fast, sometimes I have to let it sleep for a while until I see it in my head.

That's why some carvings get finished fast, when I just can't stop working on them, sometimes, they are done in many steps, when the inspiration is not there.

I have a friend who can do many carvings each day. But they almost look all the same. Leaving more time between carvings makes them look more unique it seems.

But I also make many drawings when I have ideas... in the middle of the night...

Gilles

[JLWatson]

Like most of you I also dream up ideas and then spend considerable time thinking them through. I wake up a night and ponder the idea trying to wear it out. I look over my stock of wood (not much right now) trying to visualize how the carving will fit what I have, whether I can find anything scrounging or will I have to buy some? Do I have the money? How should I finish it? Do I have the necessary tools? The skill level needed? Can I draw the pattern properly or should I try to find a pattern similar to what I want to do? There are lots of criteria to develop in the planning stages before setting blade to wood and I almost always find that the actual carving takes far less time than the planning stages do.

You know the old saying: Prior planning prevents poor performance.