WoodBeeCarver

A two day class in Whittle-Carving was held August 7 and 8, 2010 at the Ashland Area Woodcarvers meeting location in the Steelworkers Hall.  Twelve members of the club participated in the class of learning to carve using only a knife.  Pictured in the photographs are left of  club sign, Gina Woods and right of the  club sign is Jeff Reihs.  In the middle row are left to right: Pat Ramey, Allen Woods, Rick Eskins and Henry Ramey.  In the back row are left to right: Roy Prince, Ed Brown, Jerry Prince, Guy Purcell, Butch Myers and Charlie Brown.

A class in Whittle-Carving stresses using a “slicing cut”  as being the most efficient and cleanest cut in the carving process by using as much of the cutting edge of the knife blade whenever possible.  In order to introduce this concept the first exercise is to carve a round ball on the end of a square block of basswood.  The emphasis stresses to begin “thinking inside the block,” of envisioning a ball within a square and with a combination of slicing notch cuts begin to shape the square into a ball.  The simplest definition for carving is to shape a piece of wood with a cutting tool by rounding square corners and  flattening round surfaces. 

 Removing the corners of the four sides of a square block creates an octagon shape on each side of the square.  Continuing to slice off the corners of the octagons and subsequent corners a round ball will be carved.  This round ball exercise not only teaches slicing cuts, notch cuts, cutting with the grain but also becomes a demonstration for learning to position the direction and motion of the human head to be carved within a larger mass of wood. Center lines are drawn indicating the direction in which the head will be looking when it is to be carved as well as looking up or down.  The sides of the ball are sliced thinner to visualize that the human face is two thirds the width of the head’s length. 

  Next the angles and planes of the face are sliced off the ball to create a shadow form of the human face.  Using the Rule of Three for Facial Proportions, the face is divided into:  hairline to eyebrow is a third, eyebrow to bottom of nose is a third and bottom of nose to bottom of chin is a third.  These three divisions were drawn  on the basic form of a face newly carved on the ball.

The next exercise considered opening up a block for a human figure by first removing the corners into a dowel shape and then carving a hat to basic form.  Then the form of a head was carved as going up into the hat.  This exercise was followed by using a pyramid shaped block of wood to carve the ball of the nose, nostrils, smile line and then a mouth following the ninety degree angle of the pyramid.  Notch cuts were made under the eyebrow so that later eyes could b added to this pyramid practice block.

“Thinking in the block”  stresses carving to basic form to lay a good foundation to receive the carving of the details.  It is like baking a cake in that icing is placed on the cake after it has been fully baked and cooled enough to receive the icing.  Carving in the details is putting icing on the carved form.  Putting icing on a half baked cake ruins both cake and icing and carving details before the proper form is established ruins the carving.

The purpose of the Whittle-Carving class is to teach the “how-to methods”so that each student can create their own style rather than trying to emulate the teacher’s style.  The teacher’s carvings were used as go-bys and examples for each student to begin a project of carving a three inch tall bust and a six inch tall human figure.  The student learned that after the hat and head are carved to basic form for the full figure, then the rest of the block of wood was divided using the Rule of Three of Body Proportions to lay in the design of the figure.  Rule of Three for Body Proportions are: shoulders to waist is a third, waist to mid-knees is a third and mid-knees to bottom of feet is a third.

Students learned that if one learns the basics of facial and body proportions and  to carve to the basic form or shadow shape that these lessons can be applied to any figure.  All figures start out the same while it is the outfit and accessories that gives the carving its character as in “clothes do  make the man” saying.

Survivor students learned several new approaches to carving being encouraged to relax, enjoy the journey of carving and practice every day with a twenty minute workout.  The hardest part of any project is getting started, but once begun creative imagination takes over and the joy of carving begins again.

The Ashland Area Woodcarvers meet every Thursday 5:00 to 7:00 at the Ashland Steelworkers Hall in Ashland, Kentucky.  www.aawc.net  is their web site for more information as they welcome any interested in carving to visit one of their meetings. 

MINIATURE Carvings are normally under two inches tall and for competition purposes must fit within a two inch cube including the base.  The three Miniatures in the photograph at the left begin on the left with I. B. Whittled (two inch tall) in center is Jughead (one and three eighths of inch tall) and Santa head on golf tee (two inches tall).  Each were carved using only the tip end of a knife blade. 

 The very tip end of any blade that comes to a quick point is the detail blade portion of the entire blade as only a fraction of the blade is doing the carving.  The next series of photographs show several Miniatures and the knife that carved the miniature figure using only the tip end of the blade.

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In the photographic journey that follows the first series are of Alabama Charlie that shows eight panoramic views of a miniature figure an inch and three quarters tall.

Jughead will be featured next being an example of a painted miniature figure to compare with the other miniatures  that have received only a stain of raw sienna artist oil paint mixed with boiled linseed oil.  Following Jughead will be Spud Jimmy, Leroy Obert and finally I. B. Whittled.

Miniature figures are more tedious than difficult to carve requiring fine slicing cuts with the tip end of the carving knife blade.  A miniature is actually easier to carve than a larger figure in that there are less cuts to get to the final result.  The tedious part is learning to make each cut remove the proper amount of wood but then each cut gets the carver to  the detail portion of the carving sooner although there is less margin for error.  Carving miniatures can be tedious, challenging and fun all at the same time.  Like so many carving projects, one is not sufficient so there is the push to carve another and then another and then another.

The only magnification used is reading glasses worn on top of bifocal glasses for this old carver.  Knife blades need to be extremely sharp with  a thin bevel to slice through  each cut with ease. Slicing cuts are a must and no prying of loose chips.  Re-slice for a clean cut.

  Miniature carving makes each cut count while counting the fun of carving a miniature version of the carver’s imagination.

I. B. WHITTLED made a little trip to the Blackhawk Woodcarvers show in Illinois and received a first place ribbon the the Miniature Challenge Class  (28 entries) and the Judges Choices First  Runner Up of all entries.  For a little man he stands pretty tall with the honor bestoyed. 

SCRAPPER - Bobble Heads are whimsical carvings done only with a knife using scraps of wood, thus the name “SCRAPPER”.  The Old Carvers Law states: “Leave no wood uncarved,”  so Scrappers developed as a way to utilize small scraps of wood as a novelty and fun carving.  There is no practical use for these Scrapper Bobble Heads other than they provide a way to practice carving faces while using scrap pieces of wood that this Old Carver finds is hard to throw away.  It is like the fellow who bought a new boomerang and could not throw his old one away.

The heads for these Scrapper Bobble Heads were carved out of a three quarter inch square by five eighths inch block of basswood and the base is three quarter inch square by quarter inch with the corners carved off to make an octagon shape.  The spring is made out of stainless steel wire (19 gauge) cut in nine inch length and coiled around a spike nail.  Both  ends of the coil are bent to serve as a post to go into the base and the carved head.  An ice pick or an awl can start a hole for the wire post and the wire post can then drill its own hole to proper depth by twisting the coiled wire around and around while forcing the post into the hole.  Super glue jel is used to glue the coiled wire to the head and base.

Once carved and glued together the head and base are dipped in a mixture of artist oil paint Raw Sienna color and boiled linseed oil and then sprayed with Deft lacquer.  The rogues gallery that follows shows some of the Scrapper Bobble Heads.

As long as there are scraps of wood, a sharp knife and a playful imagination there are bound to be more Scrapper Bobble Heads.