Relief Carving Wood Spirit Grape Man WIP

[Tidewalker]

Hi Susan, Thanks so much for doing this, I am learning alot so far. I do have a question for you. I started this project using an 8" x 14" piece of pine that a friend of mine cut for me. it is quite a bit thicker than yours though. It is almost 2"s thick, is this ok to use? Can I get away with carving the leaves down to 1/3 the thickness of the board and keep all ther other measurments the same as yours or should I compensate for the thicker piece throughout the entire carving? I hope I am not being confusing.

I am having a blast carving this project. I will definately be purchasing more of your books and patterns if they are all done in the same manner as this tutorial is. It is , in my opinion, the best tutorial I have done so far. Very easy to follow and very well detailed.

Thanks again,

Darren Myers

[Irish]

Darren,

Go for it!!!!! I would stick with making the deepest point 2/3's into the wood with 1/3 reserved. Pine will take very deep carvings well.

I would make the rest of the depths in proportion to your wood's thickness if you want the flat relief feeling to the work.

OR ... ... you could do the face low and have this long, deep huge nose coming up out of it ...

I'd love to see what you've got so far.

Susan

[Marci MN]

I need to jump in here and say THANK YOU!! I've read every word! Studied every picture!

I have some basswood on order and I'm hoping to do this tuturial soon! That and we are about to go split some wood so I can work on a face in a half log.

Thanks again Ms. Irish.. this tuturial is sooo appreciated by me.

[Irish]

It's just Susan 'round here Marci! No Ms. attached ...

Susan

[Irish]

It's early Sunday morning, a beautiful day and a perfect time to carve ...

Before I start to post these next dressing or finishing steps I want to note a couple of decisions that I have made about how I want to finish my leave spirit face and a couple of the knife holds that I will be using.

OK ... I miss named this thread. He, obviously, is a grape leave not an oak leave. I was undecided about which to do, considered the oak hard but chose the grape ... then miss named this thread.Head Bange


Step 88: You can see in this photo the carving a few steps ahead of where we are now and two grape leaves. The one one your left is a wild grape leave and the one on the right is domesticated. Notice the wonderful deep cuts that create the five lobes of the domestic grape. That's what we are headed towards. Also notice how textured both leaves are. They have lots of little planes that catch the light made form the very fine veins in the leaves. I want that plane look in my carving. So, I am not going to sand this piece to remove the chisel and knife stroke planes.

I have several sharpie marks at the brow ridge where the leave stem meets the forehead and nose. I don't want to lose that area! I want that stem to end up becoming his nose as this will connect the face and leave as one structure. To to connect the face to the leave I will take the eye brow ridges out to the tip of the leave as if they were veins.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 89: There are many tools which you can use to smooth the carving from the rough out stage into the dressed or finished stage. Here I am using my chip knive. That knife is laid so flat onto the wood that the whole back side of the knife is rubbing the wood as I work. This lets me shave extremely thin, fine chips. It also lets the knife run over just the very highest areas of the carving even though those highes and lows are small.

I think that you have noticed that I am a
two handed carver. In this image you can see that both hands are working this cut. I am 'pushing' the knife with the index finger of my right hand while bracing against that 'push' with my left hand. I use both the push and the brace to control the movement of the knife.

Step 90: Here's my large sweep gouge being used to smooth an area. In this hand grip my left hand is doing the push while my right index finger is securing the tool down to the wood. Double pressure so double control!

Susan

[Irish]

Step 91: Healing a cut. Sometimes I take my bench knife too deep into a stop cut.
Later when I am dressing out the carving that deep cut line is still there after the
area has been finished. To heal that deep stop cut I use a fine grit riffle (file) that
has a rounded tip. I lay the tip of the riffle on top of the stop cut. Push firmly
while pulling the riffle along the entire length of the cut. This presses the fibers on the sides on that cut back together where they will stay quite nicely. As you work you will want to watch for deep stop cuts then go ahead and heal them as you find them.

Oh ... a riffle is great for really tight corners that you just can't tease the fibers
out. I do sand and I sand liberally as needed.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 92: We will be using the v-gouge throught this stage of the carving. I do not take my v-gouge into the wood so deep that the sides of the gouge catch wood. I let the v-gouge ride along the top surface of the wood taking several passes to make one deep cut. This gives me very clean sides to the v-gouge stroke.

Step 93: In the infamous words of my father "You would be amazed..." at how wonderfully a white artist eraser can add a final polish and smoothing to your carved areas. It also removes the oils and dirt left from your hands while you were working.

Susan

Back in just a bit with more

[Tidewalker]

I will try and get my camera working and post a few pictures so you can see what I have done so far and maybe you can give me a tip on how to proceed. Thanks again for the help. Also what do you recommend on your site for begginers. something along the same line as this? thanks again.

Darren

[Irish]

Darren, Mike and I have a lot of free tutorials on our site. None are as indepth as this one as we simply don't have the bandwidth for our website.

Goto: www.CarvingPatterns.com our home page. When the page loads the first white table has five little barns in the center ... from the barn pattern to the barn carving ... Look to the right side of those barns and you will see the links for both the Online Primer (real basic info and definitions) and right below that the Online Free Tutorials (all of which have free patterns with them).

You might like the Landscapes tutorial as if has a lot of ideas on how to take one pattern then make changes to create a whole bunch of different little barns. The sailing ship lesson is fairly detailed too.

Susan