A “Go By” is a term applied to the use of a carved object, partially carved object, a photograph or a drawing that is studied and looked at during the carving process to guide the carver. It is an instructional aid and a visual guide to help see what is being carved. The key word is “see” with the mental eye to get a fix on how a carving that is being carved will begin to look as the wood is being shaped. Yoga Berra in noted for his Yoga-isms like “you can observe a lot by watching.” A Go By helps the carver to see if the carver will observe and imagine what cuts were used to carve the Go By to its present form. This “observation to see” is not a quick process but does require a thoughtful and methodical visual analyzing of the parts and sum total of a Go By. Read the rest of this entry »
The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver who has developed a style of carving called “Whittle-Carving” to imply carving using only a knife. The most efficient use of a carving knife is to utilize a slicing cut as often as possible. A slicing cut is similar to slicing bread, slicing steak or the action of the guillotine’s skewed blade slicing as it slides down the track of the guillotine. The cutting edge of a knife is made up of very small cutting teeth similar to teeth on a hand saw and it is these teeth when used in the slicing action that separates the wood fibers for a clean cut. Using the knife blade with a wedge cut crushes fibers before the edge cuts the fibers resulting in a fuzzy and cloudy surface. A slicing cut creates a clean and slick surface. The scimitar blade shape with its curved cutting edge slices in both the push and pull stroke. It can also make slicing cuts upside down and sideways as well as right side up. The concave shape of the back of the scimitar blade allows for reaching into tight areas where another blade shape would be impaired. Read the rest of this entry »
A carving friend to the entire woodcarving community is “Ol’ Don” Burgdorf who has been a friend as guest of any carver’s inspiration through his “Doodles ‘n Notes for Carvin’ Folks” and his instructional web site http://artofdon.com . He has granted permission for some of his intellectual property to be resourced on this blog for instructional purposes. Under the box on the right column of this blog entitled “BEE HIVE” and under the title “Ol’ Don Burgdorf Face Study” are four must read and study tutorials that will benefit anyone who carves faces. “Ol’ Don” has a very unique way of coming right to the point through his art work and verbal descriptions of teaching lasting lessons. Study and put into practice what he teaches and carved faces will come alive. Thank you, “Ol’ Don.”
Recently I was given a fisherman/sea captain figure by two carving friends who thought it looked a little like the Wood Bee Carver by its style of beard. It is one of those tourist souvenir carvings that has been around for years that used a “flat plane” style of carving technique to economically produce a lot of lookalike carvings.
Harley Refsal has been the most notable authority on Flat Plane Carving as a historian, carver and author of Flat Plane Carving projects. Flat Plane carving has its origin in Scandinavia countries and may have influenced such carvers as Emil Janel and Andy Anderson and the anonymous carvers of tourist souvenirs in cottage industry seventy five years ago.
The characteristic long and broad whittling strokes that create a “flat plane” on the surface of a carving create a minimalistic and folk art beauty to this style of carvings. Flat Plane carving offered a quick approach to earlier cottage industry for making repetitious carving strokes in an assembly line fashion to turn out carvings as cheaply as possible for the tourist gift shop trade. 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 »
Gandalf , the wizard of Lord of the Rings fame, was carved using a Signature Series knife made by Helvie Knives as per my design. This particular knife is called a Universal Scimitar or U-2 in the Helvie Signature Series catalog of knives (click on “Helvie Knives” under “Cool Links” to get to their web site catalog). It is called “Universal” in that it can be used for all types of “Whittle-Carving” as both a roughing out blade (full length of blade) and a detail blade (quarter inch of tip of blade). The convex curve of the cutting edge allows for a slicing cut as it is pushed or pulled through the wood. The concave shape of the back of the blade in the Scimitar blade shape allows for reaching in areas where other blade shapes cannot reach as well as provide an easy roll out of slicing cuts. The handle is a fat cigar shape that fits the palm of the hand comfortably allowing for the knife to be rotated easily so that the blade can cut upside down, right side up, sideways and in any direction needed to make a slicing cut. The tang portion of the blade between the handle and where the cutting edge begins is extended to allow for reaching across a large area without being impeded by the end of the handle. Also this design allows for the index finger to wrap around the tang portion of the blade when choking up on the blade for precise slicing and detail cuts. Read the rest of this entry »
“Face Study Stick – Three Version” found under “BEE HIVE” is a visible and printable instructional aid for practice carving faces. The top exercise is carving a ball out of the one inch square at top of the stick. The ball is later used to carve a face that is looking sideways and upward. The second practice face is carved on a corner to illustration that the face fits into a ninety degree space from tip of nose outward to the cheek bones. The third face at the bottom of the stick has been carved to emphasis the width of the face as being two thirds of the length of the face. Read the rest of this entry »
