Inspiration for carving projects comes in various ways.  Upon receiving a Father’s Day card with the picture of a chimp in a cowpoke outfit was just the ticket for the next carving project.  Using the general guideline for carving six inch tall Cowpokes, this carving simply changed the facial detail into a primate rather than a human.  Every carving project is a new learning experience making Top Banana a journey of learning while having fun with the challenge.  Making it more of a challenge, Top Banana was carved using only one knife made by Ralph E. Long with a scimitar blade shape. Read the rest of this entry »

These are the ten surviving students of a two day class held at Gorman Farm, Evendale, Ohio (Cincinnati) on June 12 and 13.  Pictured left to right on the first row are: Bob Manning, Don Potter, Mickey Huston, Kurt McCarthy, (second row) Barry Pennington, Fred Kruetzkamp, Dick Middleton, Dick Pyles, Steve Cotton and Rick Eskins.

The carving projects included carving a three inch tall Cowpoke Bust and a six inch tall full figured Cowpoke out of an inch and half square block of basswood.  The beginning theme was: “Thinking inside the Block,” meaning to learn to see a subject within a block of wood and carve that subject by shaping the wood with slicing cuts of both a knife and gouges.  The simplest definition of carving is: “Shaping a piece of wood using a cutting tool in a slicing action to round square corners and flatten round surfaces.” Read the rest of this entry »

BITS AND PIECES carvings are those carvings done as a small project, often on a whim, as a favor to a friend, a small commission or a fun carving project for the fun of it. Read the rest of this entry »