[Anita]

Good Morning to all, I am a beginner carver and trying my hand at relief carving and I am wondering if there is a formula for deciding on the depth of the different levels? I hope I am not asking a question that has been answered before. Many Thanks for your help

[Irish]

Anita, I can only give you my 'rule of thumb' for relief carving.

I first decide how many levels I really need in the carving. Three to four is an average. That gives me the following:

Sky Area - sky and far distant mountains

Background - this could include distant tree lines, river banks or roads going off over the hill

Mid-Ground - usually this is where the most important element of the pattern falls as a barn complex, house or animal

Foreground - this is the upper surface of the carving and might include a mail box beside the road, a fence line or a tree

Next I divide the thickness of the wood in half. A 3/4" thick board would have a line down the 3/8" mark, a 2" thick board would have the pencil line at the 1" mark.

My carving will be in the upper half thickness with the sky area in the lower half thickness. So now I have three levels in the upper half and one in the lower half.

I use the half mark to allow a fair amount of wood behind the carving to avoid cupping and warping. No matter what you do in relief carving your work will eventually cup or warp some but allowing a large amount of wood behind the entire carving helps to keep it to a minimum.

I divide the upper half into three levels with the background level being a touch shallower then the other two. My level that contains the most important element usually has the most wood.

3/4" board:
3/8" - sky area and backing board area
1/16" - background area
3/16" - mid-ground for main element
2/16" - foreground area

2" board
1" - Sky and backing board
1/8" - Background
4/8" - Mid-ground with main element
3/8" - Foreground area

Remember that after you have the levels established that you can re-divide each level into layers. And, please remember that 'rules of thumb' are made to be broken. Oh! I should note here that these measurements would be for a very shallow roll over sky area ... very light carving. For a sky as Ron does you better include an entire extra level.

Susan

(FYI - Do you know where the term Rule of Thumb originated? Until the mid to late 1800's a man had the legal right to beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker then his thumb. If charges were brought against him all he had to do was bring the stick to court to prove his innocence.)

[Alice in Wonderland]

Thank you Susan
this was so informative I am glad I run into this post ,when I look at some of my relief carvings I shudder of the mistakes I made and I would like to rip them apart and start over again, mind you I still like them.lol
Thanks again for your tutorial
Alice

[Mottles]

Quote "(FYI - Do you know where the term Rule of Thumb originated? Until the mid to late 1800's a man had the legal right to beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker then his thumb. If charges were brought against him all he had to do was bring the stick to court to prove his innocence.)"

Here's my take on that law. LOL
Kathy
__________________

[Eddy Smiles]

Levels in Relief

[Anita]

Thank you for the good information. It was a big help.

[Pierre]

Perhaps I can add a bit here?
First look at the following carvings and then I'll begin a second explanatory post. These are in very deep multi-level relief, and there is a definite optical science to achieving similar effects wihtout having to chisel so deeply.

This first one is the entire 5' x 18' carving with our crew in front. This piece is 6" thick, back to front. I may have posted this here some time ago. Can't remember..... OGS (Old Guy Syndrome)



The following are segment pictures of this piece.






P

[Pierre]

And........... the final of the main carving and one more example.




And this piece that will have it's own explanation.






Back soon with explanations. And don't let the color put you off. Stained or painted, the techniques are the same.
I need a hand break. One handed typing is no fun!

P

[Pierre]

I'll do a breif mothodology explanation when My Daughter ahs had her breakfast and can type for me. I can see that this needs to be a photographic tutorial, so I'm going to take some time this week and have my son do the demo and have my Daughter take the picures and type for me.
Back a bit later.
P

[Pierre]

Putting up the tree, decorating and gift wrapping took all of her time yesterday. She'll do some typing for me this afternoon. Sorry.

P