“Sidekick”  is a representation of an old cowboy who has been around a long time with dependable friendship and loyalty to be trusted to help out in a pinch and always reliable.

Sidekick was carved out of an inch and half square by six inch tall block of basswood and colored with artist oil paint mixed with boiled linseed oil in the Painting Softly style. (click on photo to enlarge) Read the rest of this entry »

    “Scrapper”  is a nick name given to a carving project that is carved into a “scrap” piece of wood.  Scrapper is a way to fulfill the Old Carver’s Law: “Leave no wood un-carved.”   This four faced Scrapper was carved out of a one inch tall, two inch wide and one inch deep scrap of basswood.  Often a Scrapper will begin as an intended practice carving and in this case the face with bushy hair was carved on one end.  On the other end a cigar chomping dude was carved.  With plenty of space remaining between the two faces on each end, an Indian was carved on one side and a pirate was carved on the other side.  (click on photo to enlarge)

The knife used for this carving is a homemade knife made out of blue blade spring steel with a handle made out of leopard wood.

Otis and Sloppy Joe are not only carving studies but also studies in character as they represent the contrast of personalities.  Much like the “Odd Couple” characters of movie and television fame, Otis is the neat one while Sloppy Joe is the less refined. Joe chomps down on the stub of his cigar, has no sense of color coordination nor of bothering to button all the way up.  Otis gives the polished appearance of a well-dressed man who is prepared for rain or whatever else may come up as his pipe dreams encircle his head much like the smoke from his pipe. Read the rest of this entry »

The WOOD BEE CARVER  carves continuously in the journey of woodcarving to continue to learn and sharpen the craft of carving various subjects.  Each carving project is in essence a “Study Carving” whereby lessons are learned through the innovations of designs and the stretching of ability through challenging innovations.  Such carving projects become the subject for an instructional posting on this blog as well as a Go-By for a carving class.  Even though the subjects may have been carved previously, yet each time a similar subject is carved it becomes a new carving with slight tweaking of design, pose or feature.  Thus no two carvings are exactly alike as each takes on its own personality and characteristic. Read the rest of this entry »

Buzz Buzzard  is a character study of a caricature of an old man standing at the twilight of days with a gaze back in time to a younger time when spring was in his step and winter was a cold breeze far away.  Now the days have accelerated towards the winter of his days with only summer memories to warm his soul. At least that is one story this carving may be telling since the purpose of a carving is to tell a story to the imagination of the observer. Read the rest of this entry »

The photograph shows a Clown writing pen and a Hobbit carved recently for  Helvie Knives  for their private collection.  The writing pen began as a ball point pen cartridge inserted into a short and a longer block of basswood to see an example of what could be carved as a carved writing pen.  The Hobbit was carved out of a five inch tall by two and three quarters inch square block.

A picture is worth a thousand words suggests what can be learned from studying pictures in this photographic journey.

The first photographic journey is of the Clown writing pen showing the front and back view followed by a picture of the Helvie Signature Series # 3 knife used to carve the Clown.

The Hobbit was carved to form using a Helvie Limited Special Edition  larger two and a half inch scimitar blade in a Pakkawood handle. A smaller two inch scimitar bladed knife, the Signature Series # 2 and a Collector’s Series knife were used for refining the form into detail carving of the overall figure Read the rest of this entry »

Traveler was carved as one of those serendipity carvings that is an interplay of creative imagination partnering with the activity of carving to create a new carving subject.  Often in the act of carving the action of the knife shaping a piece of wood will almost dictate the carving design.  That is the way “Traveler” came into existence and when finished he had the appearance of a man of experience out for a walk towards the horizon of an unexplored journey.  The Original Traveler is the one in the middle of the four photographs above. Read the rest of this entry »