Artist author and instructor Andrew Loomis influenced several generations of budding artists and his work still is influential.  The plate to the left is one of his illustrations of facial planes to help in viewing the basic shape of the human face.  If one is to become comfortable with carving faces in wood, one needs to be able to see the human face in various ways to fix an image in the mind.  It is part of what I mean when I say, “Think inside the Block,” (the Block Head as well as the Block of wood)  as being able to see in the mind first the basic shape of the human face.  It is the mental image that guides the carving hands and tool to shape the wood into a human face.  By using a study of facial planes both visually and carving facial planes the carver will be able to carve to shape a face that looks natural and pleasing. Read the rest of this entry »

THREE VERSION FACE STUDY STICK tutorial is located under “BEE HIVE” as a pdf document which can be viewed and printed.  This instructional aid presents three versions of carving a practice face on one stick.  At the top of a square stick a ball is carved out of a square area to teach the roundness of  a head and its ability to rotate as a ball joint up and down, side to side and tilted at an angle.  The second version uses the corner of the stick to teach that the face fits into a ninety degree angle .  The third version at the bottom of the stick teaches the narrowing of the width of the face as being two thirds wide while being three thirds long.  In each version of the practice faces the Rule of Three of Facial Proportions is utilized to carve in the basic form of the angles and planes of the face.

This Face Study Stick teaching carving to basic form.   A   Facial Detail Carving tutorial is located in another pdf document in “BEE HIVE” under the title “FACE EYE STUDY”  which can also be viewed and printed.  As with any practice carving project,  the more one carves the more one learns while carving.  “The more one carves the better one carves,”  is experienced as one carves, so carve as often as possible remembering that every carving pr0ject is simply a practice piece until finished.

  Stay Sharp and BEE CARVEFUL.

Seeing the A – B – C shapes  in a human face is a good way to look at all faces to study.  Once the image of reference points of the A – B – C of a human face is embedded in the carver’s creative sub conscious, then the carver can see the face with both an inner eye and natural eye.   If the carver can see the face in the mind then the carver can carve the face in wood.   Study the face of the carving by John Burke and look for the A – B – C shapes  in the face.  Look for the shape of a letter A.  Then look for a separate shape of the letter B turned clockwise one turn so that the straight part of the B is at the top and the rounded part of the B  is at the bottom.  Then look for the  shape of  the letter C , either frontwards or backwards.  Read the rest of this entry »

“Whittle Folk Spuds” –  an article written by Don Mertz,  is  in  the  current Sring 2011 issue of Carving Magazine  http://www.carvingmagazine.com/issues/current.shtml  This “how-to” instructional article offers a step by step verbal description accompanied by appropriate photographs.   The article  in Carving Magazine is  in  more detail that a previous posting entitled “SPUDS ” https://woodbeecarver.com/?p=4554   Also in the same issue, my good woodcarving friend Mark Akers has a tutorial on carving a Civil War Soldier as in the photograph below.

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A FACE-EYE STUDY has been put in a pdf format and can be viewed and printed by going to “BEE HIVE” under the left hand column and click on “FACE-EYE STUDY”.

This is one of the  educational projects used in the classes I teach about Whittle-Carving or carving only with a knife.   Read the rest of this entry »

Braided hair adds a lot of interest to any carving where braids seem appropriate.  The three photographs above show examples of the use of carved braids.  While braids looks nice on a carving they also need to be carved as accurately as possible.  Braids are thicker and wider where the braid begins with three bunches of hair braided together.  The braids narrow as they come to the end of hair and the twist of hair needs to be tight. Read the rest of this entry »

Whittling is the art of shaping a hand held piece of wood with a knife using various cutting strokes. The most efficient cut is a slicing cut since the cutting edge of the knife blade is made up of very small teeth very similar to saw teeth. Think of trying to cut a slice of bread. If the knife is laid across the loaf and pressure forces the blade straight down with a wedge cut, the bread will be cut eventually but will be squashed before the blade is forced through the bread. If, however, the knife is used in a slicing action allowing the cutting teeth of the blade to separate the fibers of the baked bread then a slice is possible with a smooth cut with little squashing of the bread. The same happens when whittling by using a slicing action allowing the cutting teeth of the blade to do what it is intended to do without forcing the blade into the wood. The key is to learn to develop a slicing action as often as possible to create clean and crisp cuts. Read the rest of this entry »