Dark Fox with a Spear and Running Turtle with a Medicine staff are eight-inch-tall carvings in Butternut wood carved in the Whittle-Carving style of using only knives in the carving process. The photographic journey will present the progressive development of the Whittle-Carving of each Native American figure with brief descriptive notations of the process.

Dark Fox begins with a Butternut block of wood eight inches tall, two and three quarter inch thick and three and half inch wide. The SHAPE UP process of carving the basic form begins by carving the area for the feather head dress and head as well as the spear. Progress continues by drawing landmark guidelines on the body portion of the block and then continue the shaping of the basic form.  The three photos below picture the progress.

[CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE]

The next four photos show the use of a Zig-Zag blade with two cutting edges, a long curved cutting edge on the belly of the blade and a small cutting edge angling away from the tip of blade to form a second cutting edge whose use can be seen in the four photos.

The photo below shows the carving completed with some of the knives used in the progressive process.

Running Turtle with a Medicine Staff and his blanket-robe wrap was carved out of the same size Butternut block of wood.  The photographic journey will depict the progressive development with brief descriptive notations to accompany some of the photos. The photos below begin with the block of Butternut followed by the feather head dress/head and medicine staff being carved to  basic form showing the use of the Zig-Zag blade making various shaping cuts

The next photos show the landmark drawing on the body portion of the block and the beginning of the Shape Up process of opening up key areas.

The next series of photos continue the progress shaping up process proceeding to the carving under the blanket/robe by showing some of the knives used to carved in that awkwardly tight area concluding with the final photo showing the long curved cutting edged blade making gentle slice and roll cuts to shape the wrinkles on the back of the robe.

The photo below shows the carving completed with some of the knives used in the progressive process.

 To view the finished carvings click on GALLERY.