[Irish]

I had a college student write me this morning. She is doing a research paper for her art class on how drawing is used in wood carving and wood burning.

She wrote:
"My name is Tara. I have grown up around wood carving, but my passion is woodburning. This semester in college my mom talked me into taking a drawing class to help with my burning. Our mid-term project is to give a presentation on any artist of our choice and show how drawing relates to their artwork. I was wondering if you had any insights on my project or could offer any help. How did you get started drawing and woodcarving?"

I though this might be a good subject to throw out to the forum and hope that you might add your thoughts for the young lady! Although she noted she will be doing a wood burning as her example for the research I think that how drawing, whether line design or fully developed tonal value drawings, for wood carving are used would also apply.

With your permission I will pass on any insights and thoughts to her.

Thanks, Susan

[squbrigg]

Good subject for a term paper....wish they had stuff like that when I was in school.....but that's a while ago. I'll try a stab at offering a perspective.

In my line of carving, I have found that drawing skills are essential. With each different form of carving that I try, I have found that drawing what I invision first, aids me in getting my head around the subject. The better the drawings, the easier it appears to be for me. Carving a subject in the round or in relief, good drawings are critical to me, to study before I attempt a cut. Drawing the different perspectives:front, sides, back, top, bottom and then sketching from a front or back angle helps me get through the transfeer from two dimensional to three dimensional.

In my main subject matter, ship modelling, drawing is an essential and very critical part. You have to duplicate the draughts/lines/plans of the vessel you are building, in great and accurate detail, usually into a different scale than you find them. You build directly and exactly from the drawing. So if it's wrong, so is your model. The same arises when you carve all the detail for the model: figurehead, scroll work, blocks, cannon, riding bits, hatches, cabins and their furnature, figures, etc. They must be accurate and perfectly drawn to scale and proportion, and then carved so.

Free form carving, you could manage without drawing, but I wouldn't! I still like to see on paper what I am trying to create and plan the carving by use of the drawings. The drawings will be useful in every part of the process from selecting the wood, or gluing wood up to shape, to the final detail that you want to create. Often your drawings will show you what will and will not work, so you save time , effort and material from mistakes in design errors.

Burning requires good drawing skills, essentially burning is just drawing with heat. The burning effect accents the wood like nothing else, it acts much like a pencil or charcoal, and you can achieve spectacular effects with shading and contrasts. I don't consider myself good at drawing, except for the technical aspects in ships and the sea, but there are ways around inferior drawing skills.....black and white photography or purchased designs will aliviate any shortcoming in drawing skills that you might have, but only to a point. I have found that good drawing skills are essential to having good woodburning skills. I use burnings on many types of carvings, in the round, relief and of course doing just burnings themselves. The burned edges enhanse the shadows and depths, and can provide detail that you would otherwise miss out on. Burning is also good for the carving, it sears the wood fibers and leaves edges stronger than before, while accenting them.

Best of luck with your project and happy carving/burning.

Bob

[Irish]

Bob, !

That is a fantastic posting and just the type of feedback for which I think the young woman is looking. I agree so much - I could not think of even one area of my art where I don't use drawing skills.

Any other feedback from those of you stopping in to read this thread will be greatly appreciated !!!!!

Susan

[AlArchie]

A lot of carvers, myself included, are not really good at drawing, but we have to at least learn to sketch to work on basic outlines that we can transfer to the wood before we begin.

One method I have used quite a bit, is to take a photo of a subject I wish to carve, and then work that up in a graphics program as a line drawing. It can them be worked up or down to whatever size I need. I also have a good opaque projector that I use to transfer photos onto paper in whatever size I need for relief work. That takes some drafting equipment, too, and a lot of time, but I've managed to transfer photos of the Ashland historic depot and a decapod steam engine using this method. It works out very well because you can mark the size of your material on a large piece of freezer paper, then project the image either directly onto the paper, or in cases where more refined detail is needed, put the paper on a piece of glass and then project onto the back side of the glass, and trace what you need without getting in the way of the projection beam.

By then placing the freezer paper, double thickness, on a light table, you can trace out specific sections for different layers on the relief carving or burning, and copy fairly easily the entire line drawing.

Al

[Lightningbolt]

It's always inspiring to hear from a student and someone who is genuinly interested in our favorite topic. Growing up, no one influenced me more than my dad who had a college background in engineer drawings... to the point where almost no matter what the subject it seems that he was always sketching his ideas, from building the kitchen cabinets or while explaining why putting those oversize mag wheels on my '72 Cutlass (at age 18) would throw the factory engineering of the steering system all out of whack. I had no choice but to return those beautiful rims after he'd spend hours explaining those detailed sketches. His drawings were amazing and at a level that I can still only envy AND one of his strongest tools of negotiation.

So, having a very strong role model in my life like this really made an impact on me about how important that developing at least a minimum ability to draw was going to be in my chosen life of creativity and just basic everyday problem solving. Today I continue to pass along to my students in woodshop class how important that it is to at least have a basic sketch on the wood before carving and they ALWAYS see me do just that when begining a woodspirit carving.

Kids are usually impatient and want great results immediately but must understand that the first step in any woodcarving, whether a master carver or not, is to have drawings for reference in the case of an intricate caricature carving... and to have a few basic lines and sketching on a walking stick before making those first cuts into a new woodspirit.

Even after thousands of wood carvings I still can't imagine sinking my knives into a piece of wood until I have scratched around with my pen for a while. More than anything it allows for a period of creative "incubation" and a way for my brain to process what I want to create in the wood. Drawing and sketching is as necessary to the process of creation as are the knives which do the carving... at least for me.

[Paul_Guraedy]

This is an extremely interesting thread about the creative process. I, too, have poor drawing skills. I wish that they were better; but, at this stage of my life (age 65) prefer to spend learning time on carving and painting skills. I still like to put my ideas down in the form of a rough drawing to get some idea of scale and what I am developing in my mind. Primarily, so that I don't wander off for a while and forget the ideas that seemed viable. If my sketching were better, I might skip the next step; but, somehow doubt it. Once I am pretty sure of the overall design, I get out the clay. This is the true beginning of a carving for me. Although, there are usually changes at this stage from what looked good to me, on paper; but, did not work in 3 dimensions. Clay is as near as I am able to get to woodcarving and still easily correct mistakes. Are those of you that are good at drawing able to move from paper to wood? Are those of you that do clay models drawing first?

[Clifford_Parker]

I for one couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler. LOL I do a VERY rough outline sketch on my wood and then simply try my best to shape it to the picture in my head. I can't even color inside the lines so woodburning has eluded me so far.

I can take a piece of wood and carve anything I set my mind to or take a roll of sterling wire and a handful of beads and make wonderful jewelry but any type of drawing is simply too frustrating. I guess I'm lucky to be able to "see" the finished piece in my head.

[Irish]

Thank you Everyone! I know that Tara will greatly appreciate your taking time to share your ideas, techniques, and thoughts with her.

I do use drawing for everything; carving, burning, scroll saw work. I usually do a series of thumbnail sketches. These are small quick doodles with the pencil and not meant to be complete pencil drawing art. They are instead the rough lines that I want and blocks of shading. I will do a series so that I can then look over the batch and chose what areas of each sketch work, which don't, and which I want to use. From these choices I make a final thumbnail as the guide. In the end the thumbnails may take about an hour ...

For those who have not done thumbnails before they are usually about 2" x 2" or 3" x 3" drawings. Keeping them extremely small means that I have to deal with the elements or areas of a design in chunks or large areas. Again, they create a general guide not a "you must follow this exactly at all costs not matter what" type guide. I want a guide not a constriction when I actually start working. And I save the detailing fun, especially with wood burning until I am doing the real project.

So I have never felt that anyone needs to be a pencil drawing artist to reap the benefits of sketches before they start their work.

I love the overhead projector! I think that this is one of those inventions that is greatly under rated. As a side note here, Al, did you know that Da Vinci also used a device to transfer his patterns to canvas? There is a technique using mirrors and a board with a small hole in the center that can project the image seen in the first mirror through the hole in the board onto a white surface in a darkly lite room. Da Vinci would pose his model, use this technique, then TRACED around the outlines of the projected image ... Love It! If it's good enough for Da Vinci, then I think it sure is good enough for the rest of us.

Susan

[Irish]

Paul and Clifford,

Your comments make me wonder if there are people who think-see in their minds in 3-D and others that thin-see in their minds in 2-D? I ask because both of your have noted that you don't really use drawing, a 2-D thinking process and both of you are 3-D carvers. I do use drawing and can create very detailed shaded realistic work and I am a relief carver, a 2-D carver.

So I am wondering ... is the difference in the type or style of carvings we have choosen or have we chosen our stye of carving because of our thinking process? LighteningBolt and Al, are you 3-Ders or 2-Ders?

Did that make any sense?

Susan

[Paul_Guraedy]

Ahhh, now I think you are getting to the core of the process, Susan. I do some relief carvings; but, find them extremely difficult in comparison to my 3D bird carvings. Got into an argument with an instructor (and a good friend) who is an excellent relief carver. I was carving a couple of eagles and just could not understand the feather pattern. We disagreed over wing/back/breast alignment. That evening both of us found (separately) the photo he had used to do the initial drawing. Turned out that on one of the two eagles, wind had blown some feathers up in a pattern that suggested the edge of a wing. He was able to carve the eagles, correctly, from his drawing. I could not carve these birds until I understood the anatomy in 3D.


I am able to carve architecture, fairly well, in relief; but, find animals much more difficult. It amazes me when a relief carver says something about how hard 3D carvings are. I am constantly in awe of people who can draw and woodburn, bringing depth to a 2D piece. I believe that we choose our venue of carving because of the way our brains are wired.

I mentioned going from a basic outline/drawing to clay. What I failed to note is that the clay is not to scale and is never detailed. I use clay to position the figure only. Maybe this makes more sense if I show the process.

Paul