In 2007 and 2008 I carved a few Uncle Sam figures with a redux of Uncle Sam carved now in 2020. The Wood Bee Carver carves from a block of wood using knives to carve to basic form and then in detail. Each carving project relies heavily upon the use of creative imagination backed up with visual research of graphics of the subject. Thus, every repeat carving of a given subject will be a little different in details and appearance.
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Twenty-five years ago, the Wood Bee Carver coined this instructional phrase for woodcarving instruction ~ “Wood carving is Agony and Ecstasy, but Ecstasy always follows the Agony.” This saying helped to explain a common experience this carver had with almost every carving project in its beginning stage of development. Even after almost fifty years of carving, this experience occurs at the beginning stage of any carving project. It is an experience of a feeling that the project will not turn out the way it has been imagined and that it will be a mess or a disaster. This feeling is called the “Agony” stage. Likewise, once this Agony feeling is accepted for what it is as the “tension of the creative process,” the next stage of “Ecstasy” comes to the forefront as the “creative process opens to the fix” by turning the chaos into a path forward. The lesson to be learned, is not to give up too soon but to trust the creative process to work with the tension of challenges by allowing imagination to guide towards the “fix” as the carving project develops on its way to it finishing touches. Ecstasy always follows the Agony, so relax to continue to carve out of chaos.
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HAVE HOE – WILL PLANT is a commission carving of a lady gardener that is carved out of a seven inch tall, two inch by three inch block of basswood using a series of carving knives. The simple verbal description included a gray hair lady with a braid draping over her right shoulder with length going to her waist. She is wearing a light blue tee shirt, khaki shorts, red tennis shoes, and is holding a packet of seeds in one hand and the hoe leaning on her left shoulder. A cat is rubbing against her right leg at the ankle.
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Old Sawdust is a carving representing an old wood worker who represents the old days of working with hands guided by the accumulated experience of working with wood. He is holding a plane, a saw and has a pencil in the pocket of his apron. Each of those tools were essential for hands on craftsmanship. There are lessons to learn by listening to old timers who tell of what was learned in the experience of doing. Lessons that contemporary wood carvers can apply to the carving experience since much of carving is done by hand (with apologies to power carvers).
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A commissioned carving project of a carpenter nonchalantly holding his hammer while tapping its head into the palm of his other hand is carved out of a seven-inch-tall block of basswood with the words “HAVE HAMMER ~ WILL TRAVEL” incised into the base of the carving.
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Carve along with Don Worley by using his simple follow-along trail of photographs and landmark descriptions for carving Cowboy Dude refrigerator magnets.
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HALF PINT MINIATURE CARVINGS are three-inch-tall figures carved in the Whittle-Carving style of the Wood Bee Carver using only knives to carve these figures. Miniatures are commonly defined as a carving that will fit into a two-inch cube. Three-inch miniature is the classification used by the Affiliated Wood Carvers Association at the International Woodcarvers Congress competition. “Half Pint” uses the half inch scale of a half inch equals a foot which makes “Half Pint” proportionally equal to half of the average height of six feet tall humans.
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UNCLE SAM carved in 2008 ~ six inches tall and inch and half square base, carved in the Whittle-Carving style of using only a knife. Finish is Artist Oil Paint thinned with boiled linseed oil and final coat of Deft.
UNCLE SAM carved in 2007 in the Whittle-Carving style of using only a knife ~ four inches tall and an inch square base. Finish is Artist Oil Paint thinned with boiled linseed oil and final coat of Deft.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY ~ JULY 4, 2020
