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.

The carving of a bottle stopper portrait likeness of Mac Proffitt was done as a gift for his generosity of giving a couple of wooden jugs.  Carving a likeness of another person is a challenge in order to get it to look close enough to the subject.  While not trying to be a photographic exact likeness the portrait carving is helped by including characteristics of the subject in the interpretation.  Characteristic features of Mac is his white beard and mustache, his grin and the ever present funky hillbilly hat that is so much a trademark of this Smoky Mountain Woodcarver.  The jug is symbolic of corn squeezins  that have aged to a ripe “kickedness” to make one grin like a possum.  The label on this jug states that Mac has aged since his birth and the bottle stopper likeness  shows his possum grin.

The next Bits and Pieces project was a small commission of an easel that utilizes oak leaves and acorns in the design to display a wooden post card that has sentiment value.  The easel was carved out of two pieces of butternut.  Patterns for oak leaves came from doing an Internet search on “Oak Leaf Images”, saving the examples that would apply and then printing them off to the sizes desired.  When doing Internet searches for any subject, simply add the word “images” to the subject to find a vast supply of reference images for any carving project.

The Oak Leaf Easel was carved using two pieces of butternut.  The horizontal base  (eight inches, by two and half inches by half inch thick) has three oak leaves, three acorns and a wooden log.  The vertical upright of the easel (eight and half inches, by three and half inches by half inch thick) has three acorns at the top, followed by three oak leaves, then a tree trunk with two oak leaves at the bottom where the two pieces are glued together.  In the upright leaf design some of the corners of the leaves are carved to serve as a ledge to hold the wooden postcard and some of the leaf corners are carved so that the wooden postcard can be held in place at the top much like the photograph in the first photo above is being held in place.  The Oak Leaf Easel was finished with boiled linseed oil and Deft.

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A friend asked for a black and white Knight Chess Piece to be carved to replace the two stone carved chess pieces that came up missing.  Using the stone carved Knight Chess Piece as a pattern and go-by, two wooden Knights were carved and painted using artist oil paint thinned with boiled linseed oil and finished with Deft.  In the photographs above the original stone Knight is the one on the left of each photo.  While not being a high powered or challenging carving project, yet doing a “favor carving” adds to the journey of woodcarving by putting the bits and pieces of the puzzle of life together in good natured fun and long lasting friendships.