Carving Terminology

[ragiarn]

I am new to this thread and to carving and have come across some terminology and would like to know the meaning.

Specifically: carving in the round, carving front to back or back to front. I came across this on the thread on the Napolean carving.

Doc

[Ashbys]

Hi Doc , Welcome.

Carving in the round , is basically carving in 3-d . You work the entire piece as you carve so your working around the piece. Thus carving in the round is carving all 4 sides together .

Relief carving is typically a flat carving where your carving from one side to produce a picture to give a 3 -d effect but without carving all sides .

These are normally done where you carve from back to front. You start with the background and work to the front of the carving. So the deepest part of the carving is done first.

From front to back is just the other way , you start in the front and progress to the background. The background is then the last thing you carve .

Hope that helps .
Ash

[ragiarn]

Thank you. Intuitively I had an idea that carving in the round meant carving all sides but was not sure. Carving front to back and vice versa really had me stumped.

To bad there is not a glossary of terms for those of us new to this topic could use.

Thanks again

Doc