[Irish]

Oh! I came to see what Linda had posted and found that I can upload ... the PTBs (Powers That Be) at Fox Chapel must giving me an act of kindness and resetting my bandwidth allowance .... Is this situation like over spending your childhood allowance when comic books went from 12c to 25c ?

Here are the photos that go with the above posting.

Susan

[Irish]

Linda,

By setting my levels in advance I am taking time to think through a pattern and decide what areas are high and which are low. By marking them I can sort of map out groups of areas ... as the nose and brow ridge, to me, seem to go together and are higher than the eye and cheek area. All of that is higher that where i want my leaves. I may not stick exactly to the levels I start with but because of them I seldom get an element in the wrong position in depth.

That depth gauge has saved many a wood blank from being carved through right to the other side ... I may not be the best carver or have the most advanced feel to my work, but I am very enthusiastic about carving and that has lead to a few 'opps' along the way.

OK ... back to the Oak Man while the PTBs are smiling on me.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 43: Sorry this photo is so dark ... it was an awkward cut trying to work under the tripod of the camera .... Many times for me the rough out work is done in two repeated stages. I will stop cut with the bench knife along the pattern line. Then go into that stop cut with my gouges. The gouge cuts often come out a touch deeper than the original stop cut ... but that's OK because when I repeat the stop cut step it will free those gouge chips.

Step 44: I am tucking the tendril curls ... again, use a stop cut along the pattern line then carve into that stop cut with your round gouge. (Susan, you are starting to sound like a broken records here.)

Step 45: When I dropped the leaf lobe earlier it went below the original wood level of the tendril. But that same tendril is suppose to come from behind that leaf lobe. So I am cutting a stop cut between those two elements so that I can drop the tendril level now. I used my straight chisel for this cut because I could get it straight on profile and push a nice deep stop cut.


Susan

[Irish]

Step 46: I've dropped the tendril using the wide sweep and now wanted to do another gauge check. The tendril is lower than the leaf lobe and at my deepest level.

Step 47: OK ... I amke mistakes! (All the time, Susan) I forgot to add something to our supply list. Animal Crackers! The basic food substance of creative artists! They go right along with anything that has high caffine content. Now, you are welcome to substitute here your favorite food item as long as it is not greasy or saltie as Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, CHOCOLATE!
Anyway, I'm gonna take a cookie break and then I'll get back to carving ....

Susan

[Irish]

Step 48: I am smoothing the eye area in preparation of retracing the eyes. I am using my wide sweep and just gently knocking down the ridges.

Step 49: I ususally will print off several copies of any one pattern. Then I can cut one of those patterns into pieces later to retrace specific areas. In this case I am cutting out the eye area including the cheek lines.

Step 50: You can place those cut pattern pieces back into place on your project, tape them down then slip a small piece of carbon paper underneath. Now, just re-trace the
lines and you are ready to start carving again.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 51: First ... Go read Santa Eyes thread because that is the indepth, how to carve and paint relief eyes thread The eye ball is the deepest part of the face, it's below everything else. So I am cutting a stop cut with my bench knife along each eye lid line.

Step 52: I am using my bull nose chisel to lower the eye ball area. A bull nose chisel is a straight chisel that has had it's side points rounded. The straight chisel is excellent for working these types of areas but I find that they often leave a deep
scratch mark along the edge of the profile in the cut. By rounding the edges of a straight chisel when you sharpen it you get rid of these scratch marks in the carving.
Over time your rounded edges will develop into a slight round profile to the entire chisel which just makes it perfect for relief carving.

I would not do this to a straight chisel if you only have one in your kit, nor would I do it to your favorite straight chisel. But as your tool collection grows find some older , not often used chisel and turn it into a bull nose.

Susan

[Irish]

Here's a close up of the three chisel profiles. The first is the straight chisel, the center one is the bull nose and the third is the skew. Notice that the bull nose chisel does not have sharp corners! And because I have honed mine so much it is getting a wonderful soft curve to the front cutting edge.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 53: I am going to repeat step 52 several times until I have the eye ball shaved to a nice depth and to a nice curve.

Step 54: You can see about how deep I have dropped the eye area.

Step 55: I have drawn a line where I want the upper eye lid. Using a v-gouge I am cutting along the lid line. The eye line will be slightly lower than the brow area above it.

Step 56: I have drawn the lower lid in and v-gouged it. I am using my chisel to crisp the intersection, corner, of the eye.

Step 57: With my bull nose chisel I am dropping the level of the entire lower lid below that of the upper one. So visually reading from the forehead down the brow ridge is
high, the upper lid drops, the eye ball is the deepest and the lower lid is deeper than the upper lid ...

Susan

[Irish]

Step 58: While I have the v-gouge in my hand I have done the fold line in the upper brow area. OK ... I am going to take a break for the day, I have to go do some 'real' work

I also am going to do a clean up. Now, as a quick note I work with a terry cloth towel under my bench dog/bench hook/carving brace. It catches the chips great and makes clean up easy ... I simply take the towel outside and gently shake.

I NEVER, I mean NEVER, shake the chips into the trash can. Over my many years as a housewife I don't know how many forks, knives and spoons I have accidentally thrown away scraping the dishes! And
I am not about to lose one of my good carving tools that way So I go outside, gently shake the towel then check to see if they was a tool still hidden under the chips.

Susan

[Ashbys]

Susan ,
This thread is awesome! I mean , I get to review , read , carve , review and then coffee breaks and cookies !

garry