Wayne Shinlever of Knoxville, Tennessee recently taught a class in the Cincinnati, Ohio area in his style of  caricature carving.  Nine students, five women and four men studied and carved for three days  learning Wayne’s style of caricature carving from his vast array of rough outs.

Wayne is a very accomplished caricature carver as well as inspiring instructor who has his own unique style of carving and painting.  Learning from him is a way to stretch one’s carving enthusiasm as well as learn short cuts to carving excellence.

Taking a wood carving class is well worth the investment of time and money because one can learn not only from the experienced instructor but also from fellow students.   In the camaraderie of carving and learning together there is a unique brand of inspiration that enhances one’s carving ability.  The projects that the instructor has available become a challenging way to expand one’s carving interest and ability.

These photographs of finished carvings represents the many ribbon and award winning carvings that are so much the signature carving style of Wayne Shinlever.  He has rough outs of each of these finished carvings available for his students either in a class setting or to go along with his instructional CD’s.  Class schedules and ordering of rough outs and CD’s can be found on his web site: www.carvingsbywayne.com

The project that I chose was the rough out of Wayne’s hobo carving.  The advantage of a rough out is that the basic form and shape of the carving project has been machined so that the student-carver can spend the time carving in the details.  The carving instructor guides the student as well as demonstrating the fine points of carving the various stages of the carving.  The goal is for the student to learn and not necessarily duplicate an exact  copy of the teacher’s style, only learn  the teacher’s method.

This is my interpretation of a hobo using Wayne’s hobo roughout.  The rough out maintained the same pose as the original while the details and facial features reflected my style and personality.

These close ups reveal the features of the hands, feet and hair detailing.

This Santa head was the demonstration carving Wayne did for me to show how he carves facial details and was also used to demonstrate his painting style.  The carving is two inches wide and four inches tall.

Here is Norb Hartmann demonstrating his portable wide girth – soft tissue carver’s workbench.  Norb was a fellow student who is a good wood carving friend who occassionally will do something nice for me in a good humored way.  I always tell him that “no good turn goes unpunished,” and so I must kid him a little.  But then that is the fun of taking a class and learning the finer points of woodcarving friendship as we are “always learning,” one way or another.

Wayne Shinlever is an excellent carving instructor who I highly recommend and he is also a good friend who is a good carver as well.