Carving of Mary in progress

[jmuscel]

Hi everyone! I wanted to post some pictures of a carving I'm donating to Malvern Retreat house that will be mounted on a podium in one of the chapels. If anyone is from the philadelphia area you may have heard of Men of Malvern. I've only been carving for six months so any suggestions or critiques are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Joe Muscella

[A Willburger]

Hi Joe,
You picked a challenging piece for someone who just started six months ago.
A couple of things I see that needs some attention the first is top of her head too much wood. Her eyes are the half way point on a face so there should not be much wood after what I think is hair that you roughed in. Also the cloth on her head is resting on her head so it should be close to her head. The hand and arm angle looks off but I might be wrong. Stand in front of a mirror with your carving and pose with your hand up like hers and check the angle of your arm to your carvings and don't make the same mistake I made don't use your own hand as a model because a womans hand is much smaller a delicate.
You are doing great for a new carver look forward to seeing it when your done.
Andy

[jmuscel]

Thanks for the quick reply Andy! I see what you mean with the top of the head. My desired effect is she should be looking down to the right with her head slighty lowered and tilted that way. I want to be able to show the top of her head and the top most part being the back part of the head. (does that make sense?) anyway, looking in the mirror is a great suggestion and I wouldn"t want to use my hands, I have thich sausage fingers LOL. Thanks again for the suggestions, until you mentioned it I didn't notice that. I really appreciate it.

[jmuscel]

Hi everyone. I started to add some of the roses around the border, just roughing in and removed some excess wood from the top of the head (Thanks Andy) I also started to redo the hand. I have alot of smoothing out to do and under cutting but I think I'm getting there. Does anyone have any suggestions on smoothing out or tool marking? I'm a little afraid of winding up removing too much wood overall or in certain sections.
Thanks in advance!
Joe

[doris]

this is going to be a very beautiful carving. you are doing great, just take your time. what i love is the sentiment it has already in, and to me, that is the most important in a carving...
the flowers will be stunning, and seeing your thumb as a scale, i see also these will be quite a challenge to carve...
i am not a friend of smoothing out, but it is a matter of taste of course, ..i like you have her face already pretty smooth, and if you let some areas with slight tool marks showing ,, it enhances the composition...a way to get smoother where you want, is to make very thin slivers, and then (use good lightning) shave of with almost flat tool the ridges from the previous cuts. with enough patience, you can get very smooth this way, and still tool marks ever so slightly showing...
as for the undercutting. in most cases it is not necessary, and if you decide to undercut somewhere, do it only in the final stage, since once you undercut, you cannot so easily correct mistakes later. ...
how thick is the wood, and how deep have you cut behind mary ? since the frame will stay relatively thick, i think you dont need worry when you cut in certain areas pretty deep, if you need for effect, as long as you not cut through. and to prevent that you can use a simple depth-measure-tool, made with a toothpic put in a drilled hole of a flat small strip of wood (like a ruler). then let look the toothpick out to the maximum depth you allow yourself to carve, and put it in the deep areas, while resting the ruler part on the border of the carving, to see how much you still may remove

[markken5889]

Joe, for only having been carving for six months, you're doing a remarkable job on what can be the very difficult task of feminine features. I'm impressed!

Mark

[jmuscel]

Thanks for the kind words and the great tips Doris! Mark Thanks so much for the compliments! It makes me want to keep going, I usually start getting upset because things don't look like they're going to turn out the way I planned but hearing great things and suggestions from talented woodcarvers is such a big help. I just hope I can finish her up without messing it up.
Joe

[jmuscel]

Sorry, I know this is a new WIP thread but rather than start a whole new one I wanted to also post up a relief I did of my wife and daughter I finished up just before starting my virgin mary relief. I tried using a woodburner for the background and hair.
As for the virgin mary carving, it's only 1" thick and the panel is convex to fit in the podium my Father-in-Law is building. I will try to do some more work on the roses and background tonight and hopefully start trying to smooth out all the rough spots tomorrow.
Thanks again everyone!
Joe

[jmuscel]

Hi All!
I began to smooth out and texture and added some roses. Here's my progress so far. Thanks for checking it out!
Joe

[markken5889]

Hi Joe. I really like how you've relieved inside the hood to show depth there. I would suggest you watch her wrist, as to my eye, it looks a bit thick and man-ish (if I may be so bold), and needs to be somewhat thinner and more delicate.

Great job so far!

Mark