[dhowell9000]

I am brand new to carving, I am mostly interested in relief at the moment, and am a little confused. I just recieved a book on step by step relief by david bennett and roger schroeder, but my question is how do you know what parts to carve out? just the shadowy areas? or do you carve out around all the areas you want to "stick out"... and how are those beautiful layers achieved? I guess the best answer is to practice, alot! but any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!!
Dawn

[Ashbys]

Hi Dawn ,

Welcome to the wonderful world of relief carving. I have not read or seen the book your speaking of , but perhaps I can help with the rest , then I will give you a site that is much more in depth than I am about it.

First . What is a relief carving? Well basically every carving ever made is a relief carving. No mater what the medium wood , stone , steel , gold .. ect ., or the level of the carving , Micheangelo's David to Jilly's santa or any of the carving posted here or in the gallery they are all relief carvings. Because to make a relief carving , you do a simple operation of relieving the wood away from what you wish to show.

Sound easy ? It is when it is done with sharp tools , and skilled hands, Today we refer to the diferent styles of relief carving as , relief , chip, in the round but all styles and types are from the simple process of cutting material away to make a form.

Now that said , how do we start to what is an accepted relief? First we find a pattern we what to work with, and a piece of material of a size to do the work. If the block of material is 1 inch thick , and were going to work on a picture that is a tree in the field, we have to determine our layers.

The layers are the different levels we see.
1) If the tree is in the middle of the field, then our first layer is the foreground , where the ground moves from us to the tree.
2) Then we have upper part of the tree which has the leaves and branches.

3) then the trunk of the tree

4) then the background with the horizon.

So for something as simple as a tree in the field we would have a min of 4 layers.

Since wood is a living thing, made up of 1000's of cells when we carve it it has a tendency to flex and bend as the properties of the material is changed by removing bits and pieces of it

[Ashbys]

to help control this bending we usally leave a bit of material behind the carving area. I rarely go beyond 3/4 of the depth of the board so we have 3/4 of the board as working area.

This will be divided by the layers so since the foreground goes to the trunk of the tree , I will give it 3/8 of an inch

the body of the tree will be in front of the trunk of the tree so in this area I will olny go a quarter of an inch .

The trunk of the tree I want to have depth betwee it and the background so I would give it a 1/4 of an inch.

This would leave 1/8 of an inch for the horizon.

The area to the side of the tree would be cut to the horizon aprox 5/8 of an inch

I hope that makes sense , but check out www.carvingpatterns.com Susan has some great information there to get you started.

Ash

[dhowell9000]

Thanks Ash, this does help a bit, if I want to carve something than the farthest thing away should be the deepest, right? which should then be about 3/4 of an inch, then work my way up from there?
Thanks!
Dawn

[Ashbys]

Think of it as looking through a window.

What you see is what you make .

Ash

[Ron Davidson]

I agree with Ash on the principal of relief carving. The total depth of the carving is determined by the number of different layers needed to bring out the detail of the peice. Some of mine get pretty deep maybe too deep but it is what I feel is right to bring out the details. I have to try and have a mental image of the picture in my mind that I can us as a reference to go by. I have to use my fingers to determine the shadows where you can see them so don't be afraid to use your fingers as a guide also. The best thing is like Ash said check out Susan's site start out on a simple peice and don't be afraid to ask questions.
Ron