[Tom H]

Don't know why it has taken me so long to understand the linkage between drawing/sketching and carving. But it has. I have been taking the time to evaluate the Santas that I have attempted to carve. My intent is to improve, but also to make the carved Santa's faces a bit more jolly. So, I started to draw some different faces. Some I tried to copy from pictures and some from my own imagination. After making about 20 drawings it finally hit me. I should have been doing this all along. At some point in the sketching/drawing I began to think of the pencil as a knife. Big TIP here "Draw or sketch it before trying to carve it". Nobody told me, or more likely I just didn't listen. Hopefully my "newer" Santa's will be more jolly, and not look so much like a mountain man or worse Osama BenSanta...Tom H

[doris]

wonderful news :-) i am so glad you found ths...yes, i do draw too a lot, to visualize carving before i carve. it helps so much ... you can carve only what you really know, and drawing helps you see, that is understand it in your heart, had a thread started with this topic, but obviously you were not alone, as this not got lots of attention. so happy you found it now by yourself, that is always best way anyway... have happy drawing, and carving now :-)

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I will sketch out some lines on the wood too, if the design is a little complicated, helps remember where you are going! I will sometimes replace those lines as the carving progresses....for a number of years I didn't do that, but it does help!

[mark yundt]

Doris said it well.Now you too understand the real value to sketching out ideas. As you are sketching you "see" the carving,,what lines are important,,how changing only one changes everything ,,working out different ideas,,understanding the subject in a different yet deeper way.
Good going Tom!!!!

[Callynne]

I do detail sketches, front, back and both side views, before starting my carving. The only thing I never do is sketch the face, they just sort of 'come out of the wood' it's the only thing I don't visualize before starting the carving.

Back when I was young I was always sketching, and the thing I sketched the most were faces, maybe all that prepared me for carving them and that's why I don't bother including them in my pattern sketches.

I did have to draw a face though, when I did the Fairy for WCI because it was needed for the published pattern, so guess saying never wasn't quite correct!

I'd like to get more expression on my Santa faces, do a much better job at smiles and eyes looking down at something.....so I guess it's back to the sketch pad for me too! Deborah


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[woody01]

I still draw stick people.
woody01

[feb]

Tom good topic, I was told that every thing you carve is a copy and because you've seen all theses things at one time or another and you have them all stored some place between the top of your head and your neck. I can sit in a chair and visualize like 20 different carvings, the minute I grab a pencil and paper there gone or i can't put down what i'm seeing. any tips. they shoud have a camera that can see what your seeing. oh but that may be awful. Feb

[doris]

hi feb ... maybe the image you see vanishes when you try to draw it, since you feel uncomfortable with drawing. at least that was first with me. and to me it helped, making some practise, that is i copied (and still do for exercise) images from fotos, or books. this way you build on a "visual memory" and then you feel more save with drawing, and you can draw what you see since your visual memory has something you experienced already to link to...

[feb]

Doris, thanks i do need to take more time to practice. Feb

[Thomp]

I have always drawn some sort of sketch ether on the wood block or paper,

but a most recent change is to make several views in full detail on paper and work out problem areas while i can still erase mistakes,, i may use the sketch as a pattern but i keep it for reference,,
if you mark the block you will loose the markings as you carve away the scrap, requiring you to draw about as much carve...

not many of us can grab up a block and struggle through a carving just with an image from memory in our mind. and take away the chips till were done. or come up with the desired project.

i tape or glue stick my patterns on poster board and file them away in a notebook, just in case a relative (sister-in-laws 'mostly') due to jealously want another one just like it but a little different..

i really don't like to carve duplicates, i like to carve one and move on unless i have issues with a part of the carving. then ill work on another, but carving is not a production thing for me, its a relaxing hobby...