African Mask Low Relief Carving

[Irish]

Step 16: Beginning the face

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I have changed over to my veining gouge, which is a very tight small round gouge. This tool is great for working in very tight areas as the deepest point inside of the ear rings.

When I began working down the face into it's levels I seemed to go directly to the shaping. These next steps will be very general shaping work and can - probably will - be adjusted as the face carving developes.

The chin is the lowest area of the face with the dip between the chin and lower lip almost as deep as his collar.

The cheeks fall from a circular point that is to the side of the lower eye lid. If you place your finger at the lower edge of your lower eye lid you can feel the eye socket bone structure. As you follow that bone towards your ear you will feel the bone area widen. That cheek bone area of the eye socket is a ball shape about the same size as the eye ball area. This is my high point in the cheek and jaw areas.

From that cheek bone point I have begun tapering the face down towards the lower corner of the upper lip, towards the side of the nose and to a line at the corner of the eye.

The area surrounding the eyes has been dropped dramatically. All of this area tapers towards the eye.

From the corner of the eye area above the cheeks I am working the forehead area. This is begin tapered from the center vertical line through the nose towards the edge of the face level.

When I am fairly satisfied with an areas general shaping I am using a straight chisel up side down ... cutting profile placed face down to the wood ... to carefully shave the rough ridges.

Susan

[BobD]

Wow...did you salvage any carving wood? I'm glad the video card has arrived!!!!

Bob

[Irish]

Step 17: Working the other side of the face

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As I began working the second side of the face I began adjusting the all of the work in this area. The edges of the face have been rounded over to flow into the ear area, the sides of the chin have been dropped to make the center of the chin proud and the inside - nose side - of the area surrounding the eyes has been lowered.

The area above the upper lip to the nose rolls away and down from the center dip. The dip was carved with a medium round gouge with the cuts deepest point at the tip of the nose. I have run a simple stop cut - a one cut stroke along the pattern line - at the edge of the upper lip so that I could drop this entire area slightly below the lip level. I have left a small edge on the outer side.

My large round sweep worked nicely for the dip along the upper lip line. I have angled the corner of the gouge into the simple stop cut then run the tool's edge along the full length of that stop cut.

I stop cut along the bottom edge of the nose so that I could tuck this area above the lip into or under the tip of the nose.

Susan

[Marci MN]

Just stopping in to see if anything more has been done to the mask. I've been watching this tuturial with great interest.

[toycarver]

wow! That is fabulous!! We (I'm sure everyone including Marci ;-) ) are really happy for you!
Good Luck moving your stuff. Shouldn't there be a bbq afterwards where we are all invited? ...you know we'd come help if we were closer.

[squbrigg]

Congratulations on the new "digs"! Plenty of room now! Can't wait to see the rest of the tutorial, great beginning.

Bob

[Donna_T]

Geez, Susan, why don't you have a little excitement in your life? I love the progressing tutorial, as well as the update on your impending move. After all you've been through this year, I think new digs are the perfect answer. Now you'll have room to spread out and enjoy your many activities. And now you'll have room for when pa and me and the 10 kids and their various pets load up and travel through your neighborhood on our way to see our youngins in VT. Just kidding--you know we fly there now to save time and wear and tear!

Good luck with the computer challenge. You and hubby can weather anything!

Donna T

[Irish]

Thanks Donna. I had asked BobD to delete this thread last week as I will not be able to return to it for at least three more weeks. I did not realize he was able to cut and paste it into the Mod's area.

Thanks again!!!!

Susan

[Irish]

Obviously it has been more than three weeks ... more than three months ... but if the creek don't rise, the snow doesn't cover the porch door and no one in my household has to go to the ER in the next few days we might get this done!

OK .... I did something really stupid!

Susan

[Irish]

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It has been so long since I have had a chance to carve I am going to start this session by taking time to check my knives.

As a habit I try and do a quick sharpening after I finish the day's carving and before I store my knives for the evening. Still, it's been three months or more so I want to look for any signs of rust or tarnishing that might come from improperly storing the tools. I am also checking the edges.

A few moments with my strop and rouge will make this mornings carving go so much easier.

As a general rule of thumb I seldom find that I need to work my tools on my rough (800 grit) ceramic stone. This stone is used to create the general bevel of the tool's edge - it's the bevel shaping stone.

If I check my tools often, about every half hour, and if I check them before I store them away for the night I should not have any tools that have been so abused as to need to return to that coarse stone.

If I have worked a tool hard I may need a few pulls across my fine sharpening stone (8000 grit). This fine stone creates the cutting edge. I use ceramic stones that can be used dry, with water or with oil. So a few drops of water and a few long pull strokes (10 to 20) on each side brings the edge back to a crisp clean sharp finish.

Most of the time just a few minutes on my strop is all I need. I am working my bench knife in the photos. I keep this knife very low to the strop. You can slide about 5 or 6 sheets of printer paper between the back edge of the knive's blade and the strop. I have red oxide rouge on my strop and am doing a long pull stroke with some downward pressure to the pull.

After one pull stroke I lift then lay my knive back on the strop to pull the other side. This is not a 'flip' motion as that can round over the knive's edge ... Lift it up, turn it over, lay it down then pull.

I can tell when I am working the strop well as the rouge becomes shiny and discustingly black. After a few minutes on the cured leather side I flip the strop over and finish the stroping on the raw side.

How do you know when it's sharp ... ? Put your knife under a strong light and look to see if you can see the cutting edge. If you can your tool is not sharp! On a well sharpened tool the edge is so thin that the light has no place to catch and shine. On the dark handle Moor large chip knive (my bench knive) you can see no edge.

On the light colored handled bench knife you can not only see an edge you can see a monstrous ding! I think someone got ahold of that knife during our moving, perhaps to open cardboard boxes ... AH!

The edge is dull and so flattened and therefore the light can catch that edge. The ding is big enough that I really didn't need to put it under the lamp to see the dent area. This tool will need a little time on my coarse stone to reestablished the bevel, removing the ding.

Susan