The figure of a carpenter holding a plane in one hand and a saw in the other has been a popular carving over the years in their smaller versions.   The two examples of  WHITTLE FOLK CLASSIC  here shows one with a beard and the other clean shaven.  Most of the time these are carved as “Old Geezers” and some might even call them “old galoots” because the nickname “galoot” has been adopted by those who collect and use old wood working tools as described at www.oldtoolsshop.com and many other sites when one makes a Google search on the Internet for “galoot.”

These two carvings are pretty straight forward in design except for the apron allowing for some flowing lines to add some movement to the carving along with the head turned slightly to the right.  Like all WHITTLE FOLK these are carved using only knives to make various slicing cuts to shape and detail these carvings into an “exaggerated realism” of the subject being carved.

Each is carved out of a one and a half square by six inches tall block of basswood.  Carving the head to shape of the basic form of a head is the first step. Then the wood below the shoulders is divided into thirds using the “RULE OF THREE: with body divided into thirds – shoulders to waist a third; waist to top of knees a third; knees to bottom of feet a third.”

In like manner the facial proportions follow its own RULE OF THREE: from hairline to eyebrow is a third; from eyebrow to bottom of nose is a third; bottom of nose to bottom of chin is a third. Other facial guidelines include: the eyes are located on a horizontal line at the halfway division of head length.  The ears are located on the back half of the center vertical line on the side of the head with the top of the ear in line with the eye brow and the bottom of the ear in line with the bottom of the nose.  At its width the head is one third the width of the body at the width of the shoulders.

The length of the arm between the shoulder and elbow is equal to the length of the arm from the elbow to the first row of knuckles.  The hands are in line with the crotch when arms are hanging at the side of the body.  Feet are the length of the head length and the hand is about the same size as the face when placing the palm on the chin and the tips of the fingers touching close to the hair line.

The corners of the mouth are in line with a vertical line down from the center of the eyes and the nose at the nostrils is one eye wide with an eye width being between the eyes at the  bridge of the nose.

All of this is said to encourage the observation of the proportions of a human face, head and body so that carvings will look as life like as possible and if doing caricatures, then the carver will know which proportions to exaggerate intentionally.  Carving something badly does not make it a caricature.  A caricature is intentionally exaggerated realistically.

The two carpenters in our example are more realistic than caricature or more precisely they represent “exaggerated realism.”