HELVIE KNIVES once upon a time marketed a novelty knife with a basswood nondescript handle shape intended to become a carving project for carving the handle into a subject of the carver’s choosing. A friend commissioned me to carve two such Helvie Knives using the theme of three faces carved in totem fashion.
Ivan Snyder (wearing black shirt in photo talking with fellow carver Kyle Elders) recently participated in a wood carving show in East Berlin, PA. He is a prolific carver of small carvings boasting of a unique style and besides that he make delicious cheese cakes all while being a down to earth good friend and nice guy. Thanks Ivan for your creative gifts.
Wood that has character are those serendipity discoveries that appear when cutting into a block of wood. These character blemishes occur as the result of a tree healing itself when its limb is cut or broken off during the growth of the tree. It could be a knot, ingrown bark, fungus or natural occurring dark streaks. Such blemishes may imply inferior wood that has little use and is often discarded in the trash barrel or burned. But then, when you have a carver who follows the Old Carver’s Law: “Leave no wood un-carved,” such character wood becomes a source for a unique carving with its own character.
The blemish itself has a beauty of its own and is often surrounded with interesting grain patterns of twisted and gnarly grain. The challenge for the carver is to incorporate the blemish or flaw into the overall design of the carvings often on the back side to make for a serendipity discovery in and of itself. These carvings in the photographs are examples of character wood that have been carved and others that await the carver’s inspiration.
“EYEBALL” is a term that implies taking a close look, an “eye to eye” look to see more than what at first appears as there is always something more that meets the eye.
Among the many ways to learn to carve, perhaps the best way is in doing the carving process for one’s self. At first it may be slow and tedious even challenging at times, but in the end the best and lasting lessons come in the doing.
The WOOD BEE CARVER Sign is Whittle-Carved in two pieces of basswood with the base measuring five inches by an inch and a half by half inch thick and the figure measures two and a half inch tall by an inch square. The base received incised carved letters “WOOD BEE CARVER” AND “MERTZ” and a wood burned logo of a Wood Bee. A mortice was carved into the top of the base to receive the inch square base of the carved figure that is glued into the morticed opening. The figure depicting the “Wood Bee Carver” stands two and a half inches tall being a depiction caricature likeness of “Mertz” the carver. The coloring of the carved figure used artist oil paint thinned with boiled linseed oil and finished with an application of Deft, a brushing lacquer.
HALF PINT WHITTLE CARVINGS are three inch tall figures whittle carved using only knives to shape and detail the carving project. They are called “Half Pints” because they use the half inch equals a foot scale which is “half” of the inch scale that equals a foot. A six inch tall carved figure would represent a six foot tall figure.
