The Mountain Man holding a walking staff is a repeat of a carving project done in 2015 which can be viewed by clicking on “Mountain Man Twice” While there are similarities to the original carving project, yet it is not an exact copy since it is an interpretation of the original.  Every carving project is always an “interpretation of imagination” as each new carving takes on a personality of its own as its design develops in the carving process.

The first photo gallery will contain the finished Mountain man and then will be followed by a gallery of the early stages of the carving process.  Notice the subtle sense of movement in the pose with the “S” Rule applied with no straight lines.

The project begins with a nine inch tall by two inch thick and three inch wide basswood block.  It is carved in the Whittle-Carving style of using only knives in the carving process.  The first stage is to carve to basic form the head covering and head and then divide the area below the for of the head into the Rule of Three for Body Proportions indicating the Shoulder, Waist, Mid Knees and Bottom of feet.  Within these three divided proportions the landmarks of he body and outfit clothing can be draw with simple guidelines to guide the opening slicing cuts to carve the body figure and parts to basic form.  After the basic form on the entire carving is established, then each area of the figure can then receive detail carving to complete the final design.  Artist oil paint thinned with boiled linseed oil was used for the coloration of the Mountain Man with a final application of Deft being applied.