The photo journey below around the two-inch square friendship cane carved segment is a Whittle Doodle carved for the Buckeye Round Up on July 24, 25, 26, and 27,2019.
The Wood Bee Carver has practiced his motto “Would be carvers would be carvers if they would carve wood,” as a way of living out the journey of woodcarving both as a personal pursuit and as an encouragement to others. The basic meaning of this motto is “we learn by doing and the more we carve the better we carve and there is always more to learn on the journey.”
A grandmother requested a caricature carving of her grandson and son as crossbow deer hunters wearing camo gear. Using a candid photo of father and son as a guide to inspire the imagination process resulted in carving the nine-year-old grandson holding a crossbow and the father holding a sling shot as a bit of teasing humor of who was the serious hunter. Read the rest of this entry »
A local knife maker, Pappy O’Machearley, commissioned the WOOD BEE CARVER to carve a caricature likeness of him posing in front of a blacksmith’s anvil shaping a red-hot steel blade.
Whittle Scrapper Heads are novelty carvings that are the end result of carving practice heads. Every carving project is a practice in experiencing “the more one carves the better one carves.” There is never a wasted moment when doing practice carving because one can experience the interplay between creative imagination guiding the dexterity skill of the carving hand maneuvering the slicing tool to shape the wood to correspond with the imagined subject.
Making carving knives using blades from old junk pocket knives has been a fascination for the Wood Bee Carver. The four knives in the photo above are the result of rescuing four blades from a well-worn old souvenir knife with “Paris” and the Eiffel Tower etched on the plastic handle cover. The only clue as to its origin was the etching on the master blade of the name “PRADEL” which is a famous cutlery company founded in 1920 in France by Mr. Pierre Dubost. The first photo below depicts what a similar pocket knife looked like in better condition showing it multiple blades while the second photo is the junk knife used to make four carving knives.
Rich and Holli Smithson, owners and operators of HELVIE KNIVES Commissioned the WOOD BEE CARVER to carve a Depression Era Gangster. Research was made of several historic photographs and images with a few chosen to be a visual and inspirational guide while the block of basswood was being shaped into a gangster figure. The visual images were fed into the imagination mixing machine of the mental image workshop of creativity to come up with an image toward which to release in the block of basswood. Essential in the design was to have the gangster holding a Tommy Gun, a shoulder holstered pistol, a cigar in the corner of his mouth and wearing a pin striped suit, fedora hat and wing tipped shoes. The gangster was carved in a basswood block nine inches tall, three inches wide and two and a quarter inch thick.
Rich and Holli Smithson, owners and operators of HELVIE KNIVES commissioned the WOOD BEE CARVER to carve a World War I era airplane pilot. Research was made of several historic photographs and images with a few chosen to be a visual and inspirational guide while the block of basswood was being shaped into a pilot figure. The main image chosen wore a leather flight coat, white scarf and a leather helmet with googles. The pilot was carved in a basswood block nine inches tall, three inches wide and two and a quarter inch thick.