A Chip Carving friend, Marshall Stearns coined the phrase, “Carving is like taking a bath ~ You do it everyday or you stink.” There is great value in carving every day, if nothing more than guiding the carving tool through the wood making a variety of experimental cuts. A long time the Wood Bee Carver has said, “Woodcarving is more the journey rather than the destination,” which means the shear enjoyment that comes to the carver in the process of carving. The destination would be the completion of a carving project, but once finished the carver longs to get back to the process and activity of carving.
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The FOX and RABBIT are recent carving journeys into new territory for this old carver. During show-n-tell at the Dayton Carvers meeting, my good friend Gary Walker said I should say that the fox carving represented me when the girls referred to me as a “Fox” in my younger years. I said they referred to me as a “skunk” by being a “little stinker” then and still being a “big stinker” now. That prompted another artist friend, Don Stephenson to draw a likeness of me as a “Skunk,” as in the photo above. The Rabbit was carved during this same time period as the fox.
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Whittle Dwarfs came into existence in 2011 by artist Don Stephenson who drew a few examples as carving ideas for the Wood Bee Carver. The first dwarfs were based upon these original drawings by Don Stephenson.
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A Bobble Head Santa is a novelty carving project that is similar to the humorous bobble head doll figures.
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Ornaments carved at Christmas time are to bring Love, Joy, Peace, Hope with the celebration of Noel and of course Santa. The ornament gallery that follows are those carved for 2019.
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The photographs in this gallery are of carvings on display and for sale at Peter Engler Designs, 201 S. Commercial St. Branson, MO. When Peter was alive, he purchased several of my carvings in 2005 and periodically my Hog Heaven Pig seeds. Recently owner Mary Bowman honored me again with the purchase of several carvings to have available at the new location of the store in old downtown Branson.
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A carving of a Civil War artillery officer with a cannon mounted on a butternut base with four carved plaques on the side panels of the base depicting significant benchmarks of employment career became a retirement gift. The carved soldier holding binoculars standing beside a cannon were symbolic of retirement from the military with a carved plaque showing the Army logo as the recipient’s first career. The remaining bank logo plaques depict the three banks served during the second career of the retiree.
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A Thin Wizard is a Whittle-Carved project that uses a scrap piece of wood that has been cut into a thin and tall triangle wedge shape. The larger portion of the triangle wedge become the bottom of the head of the Wizard and the thin top becomes the pointed hat of the Wizard. The two thin wizards in the photos above were carved from butternut cut off scraps approximately five inches tall.
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