[mark yundt]

I was just digging out photo's for another thread in Wood Carving for Beginners, titled,,"Travellers Locket" There I posted pictures of two pocket watches that I had carved some time ago. They were rather odd requests but fun to do to say the least. One is natural wood with a design burned into the back,,and the other is painted to look as much like a real watch as possible. I even made crystals for them.

While digging for those pictures I came across these pics of two pea pods I had done for the same customer. Apparently she had an entire collection of pea pods dating from the late 1700's in china,,pewter,,silver etc. and asked if I could carve one. Sure,,I carved two. One is closed which are the first two pics.

Pictures 3-5 show the second one I carved open. You can see the thinness of the piece in the picture where I have it held up to the light.The light is glowing through the thickness of the wood. What seem to look like peas in there is the shadow of the bulges on the outside of the pod. Then in the final you see the painted piece with the carved peas.

I thought these were sort of odd requests as carving goes. I was just wondering,,has anyone else had odd requests,,or have you carved something that might be considered odd? If so,,,lets have a look at what you have done.

[sludgeguy]

Wow!

Unusual subject but extremely cool!
unbelievable detail!

Thanks for sharing,
Doug

[doris]

there is a whole world of these kind of miniatur carvings, depending of intended use, they are called netsuke, and are originated in japan. often plants parts, like your pea are carved, or bean pods,... neat little piece, a real collector piece. nice.

[Toffeeliz]

mark - the pea pod is amazing, how on earth do you manage to carve it like that and not have it snap? I'm guessing your cuts must have been like peeling an onion lol

doris - i've just had a look at netsuke on the net and I really wanna try it now lol - Contemporary Netsuke Artists is full of some amazing and oriognal carvings - David Carlin's blew me away!

[mark yundt]

Oh Man! The majority of those were only 3 inches tall! The detail was amazing! Forget my stupid pea pod,,go look at those works instead!

[Ashbys]

Mark ,

here is another style . Anyone for HOT water ?

Ash

In Progress • Janel Jacobson ~ Small Sculptures and Netsuke

[Jim-Iowa]

Mark don't be too hard on yourself. Your peapods are neat.

As far as that Ntsuke stuff I have the site where those people hang out bookmarked. I don't contribute, because I simply have nothing to contribute!
They are way out of my league!
However I like to lurk on a lot of sites I'm interested in, because you never know when you can pick up a technique you can use.
From what I've seen of your work, you on the otherhand would pick it up quickly if you wanted to.

[Gear Dog]

Nice work, it's the odd stuff that makes it interesting to see what you can do with wood. It's funny because I've always thought of netsuke as erotic carvings. Living in NY pass these souvenir shops and they would be hidden in the display windows. I checked out some of the links and the work there is amazing.

[mark yundt]

Thanks Jim,,thoughtful of you to say that. But I remember seeing pieces like this years ago in Fine Woodworking. Most were done out of boxwood,,yew,,and other tight hard woods such as Ashbys link is showing. Really neat.Funny too,,besides the little texturing tool,,that sure looks like a full size "mallet" tool he's got in his hands carving that little piece???. Who would have thunk it???

Surely not me....

Yes,,,I realize there is a collection of custom miniatures that are used..that photo though just made me chuckle

[BobD]

LOL...I'm working with Janel to create a sxs article. She does awesome work!

Bob