[Lightningbolt]

Thought that I’d put up a few pictures of my latest carving in progress, even though it’s just your basic woodspirit walking stick. At the same time I’ve been trying a few new methods that will hopefully help me to expand my carving for the better and thus give others a few ideas to ponder upon. Gosh, when it comes to carving I’d say that we’re all in the “life-time” student category no matter how professional success has been blessed upon us.

Presently I’m inbetween sessions with my woodshop class and management has asked me to produce 5 more woodspirit walking sticks which they use for P.R. with various community leaders, legislators, and friends of our program. It was also requested that I produce several small woodspirits with our company logo imprinted on the bottom… something small that could be placed on a desk. I’ll post pictures of them when I begin sometime later.

Before I get into the walking stick I thought that you’d enjoy a couple of pictures of where I spent all day today carving. I like to sit in the swivel chair which allows me to push myself around the floor in and out of the carving which I like to brace freestyle on two bench stools when I’m working on walking sticks. At certain times during the carving process I do however put the stick in a table vise when doing a lot of the roughing out.

As seen from the pictures I tried something new today which I believe really accelerated the creative process and gave “just the right” nudging on the cranium for going beyond the status quo in my normal carving. I decided to print out a bunch of pictures that I’ve downloaded from the WCI message board and tape them up in front of me as I was carving and although I never studied any one particular picture I did find myself studying the many different eyes, ears, beards, lips, eyebrows, etc. during the pauses. Can’t say that I copied any particular style but just having those pictures posted in front of me gave my brain much more food for thought and the courage to try different things. I’ll be doing much more of this in the future so if you see a picture there which is yours, then I’d like to thank you very much.

I carved the stick from a nice VERY straight piece of sourwood which I traded a friend for a piece of maple back during the summer. It had dried super hard but still carved fairly well. The pictures were taken this afternoon after the initial carving and I began the first layer of painting before coming home from “work”.

After the pictures were taken I also lightly sanded the spirit lightly with a piece of 220 sandpaper which I haven’t done at this stage in the past and I really liked the results. I also folded the sandpaper and did the light sanding in-between all of the beard cuts.

Sorry for not participating in the forum as much as I’d like to but these particular pages are just loading MUCH too slow for my dial-up connection… and I’m even disabling all graphics from loading while on the board. I’ll try to do what I can when I have the patience (and time) to deal with it. Sure with they could get dsl into my “holler” out in the boondocks, but I’m not sure that I’d be willing to pay the $450.00/year for it if they could. (:

Ch---eers!

[Kenny_S]

Nice looking stick Dave. I like the expression. Are you staining , painting or leaving natural?

[Irishman]

Quite an assortment of photos you've got there. I do the same to force me into trying something new.
I'd be interested how you approach your desk spirits as I had the same idea for some time. I have a number of staff retiring soon and I thought they would make a nice accessory for their home office.
Nice walking stick.
Patrick

[chuckt]

Thanks for sharing the pics of your working area and the surrounding yourself with pics idea. Sounds like a good one to me.

I have been dabbling with carving over the last year (stick spirits and bark carving - no pics to post yet though) and I too have been collecting pics from here and the web for inspiration. I love Shawn Cipa's stick face in the book you have on your bench. His work is so distinctive - when I see it I know it immediately. I hope to one day develope my own "style" too. But for now your idea of surrounding yourself with samples not as strict reference material but more as inspiration that is absorbed indirectly is I think a great one.

I also love Marc Gargacs work in Aspen. He too seems to have developed his own take and his faces are *so* detailed and expressive. LOVE em!!

Your idea of desk spirits is one that I too have been toying with. As a new carver I tend be very cautious and not wanting to "waste" material I started carving small 8-10" sections of stick (so as not to "waste" a whole stick - silly huh?) until I was "good enough" to carve full length sticks consistently. An aside - the reason I started carving was a limb from our black walnut tree in front of our house came down and I cleaned it into a really nice hiking stick. Well I wanted a spirit face on it, but didn't know how to carve so I took a book from the library and began to bone up. Still haven't carved it because I don't want to ruin it before I get *really* good at it. (See - silly right?)

Anyway - my wife and mom loved these little exercises (I've only done a few) and set them out to display in their unfinished (both carving and in terms of finish) state. (But then wives & moms love most things we do - so I don't trust their opinion - heh.) So I began thinking that this too might be a marketable idea one day, or at least a nice gift idea.

Let us know how it goes, and nice job on your spirit too.

Regards,
ChuckT

[GaryMc]

Hey Dave,
Nice stick youare doing, I can see the progress you are making. The of the boards with the photos is a good one. I have thousands of images off the web, but never thought of printing them out like that. I will have to do some of that. Also I am flattered that some of my carvings are there on your idea board. keep up the great work!
GaryMc