Block Heads are heads carved into a square block of wood that is used as a block to house the blade of a carving knife for a commemorative knife presentation.  The block began as a three inch square block of basswood. The top of the block or the end grain portion of the block is the location for the insertion of the knife blade.  This part of the block was decorated with free hand chip carving design.  The one knife used for carving the four faces and the chip carving is a knife made from a commercial band saw blade.  The blade with its scimitar blade shape has a slight flex that aids in some of the deep relief slicing cuts. Read the rest of this entry »

Three Hobbits, Three Gnome Wizards and Three Spud Characters make up this Trilogy of Three carving exercises.  Every carving project is a learning project.  What is learned in carving the first subject guides the creative subconscious in carving the second and then the first and second combine to create the third project.  While all three are very similar, yet each one is a little different from the other two. Read the rest of this entry »

Novelty Carvings follow the Old Carver’s Law: “Leave no wood uncarved.”    In the example in the photographs above, a head of a sea captain is carved on the top of the handle of a plumber’s helper (plunger) and with a roll of toilet paper it becomes a handy bathroom fixture or outhouse novelty.

Scrapper Faces are carved from “scraps of wood” that serve both as a novelty carving and a way to practice carving faces.  Novelty is “for the fun of it” just as carving is basically for fun.  Lets all have more fun by carving a little every day and “the more one carves the better one carves,”  a novelty in itself.

“Clothes make the man,” is a saying that is helpful for carving caricatures.  Every caricature has a face and that face could fit on many different characters depending upon the clothes and accessories that are carved into the subject.  In the case of these two “Tennis Bums” it is the tennis racket and tennis ball that gives it away that these caricatures are “Tennis Bums.”

Each was carved out of a six inch tall by two inch square block of basswood using only a knife in the Whittle-Carving style of the Wood Bee Carver.  One photo shows one tennis bum carved standing beside a block of basswood into which the second tennis bum will be carved. Read the rest of this entry »

Every carving is a learning project.  Even though the subject may have been carved at an earlier time, yet carving the same subject again will have a personality of its own. Carving the same subject twice at the same time still results in two individual carvings with characteristics unique to each one. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich, Holli and daughter Skylar Smithson are owners and manufacturers of Helvie Knives  which includes their signature series.  The carving of Cinderella  utilized three Signature Knives in carving a ten inch tall Cinderella on a two and a quarter inch by four and a quarter inch base.  Skylar especially likes the Princess characters of Disney creation and is the recipient of this carving to add to her collection as a three and half year old who loves wood carvings.

Every carving project is a learning experience in which the carver attempts to create the best features of a particular subject.  Carving the female face is more of a challenge than doing a caricature of a male face because female features are soft while the male face has hard lines.  So even though Skylar immediately recognized the carving as being Cinderella by saying “It is HER,” yet from this carver’s perspective the face is not as soft, feminine or as youthful as had been hoped.  So it is back to trying again on the next feminine project to carve the face closer to as it should be.  This is another example that carving is an every growing and learning experience with each carving being simply a “practice piece” from which to continue to do one’s best. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea for carving a Madonna and Child in the shape of the letter “J” connected to letters “O and Y” to spell “JOY” came from an editorial cartoon drawn by Steve Breen  in 2007.  A cartoon does not always have to evoke humor as much as it captures one’s imagination in a thoughtful manner.   Such was the case with Steve Breen’s  cartoon that nagged and prodded the creative muse to become a wood carving. Read the rest of this entry »