Some of the best friends we woodcarvers discover are those within the carving community who carve interesting and eye catching creations that brings a kindred appreciation to the carver who exercised their creative endeavors. Recently Ed Redwine became a friend on the social network of Facebook in that the Wood Bee Carver was intrigued with a couple of photographs of Ed’s carving activity pictured above. Read the rest of this entry »
Robert Soderholm is a carving friend from Williamsburg, Virginia. We met several years ago when he was a student in a couple of classes I taught and have kept in touch at a distance. Most recently we visited again at the Dayton Artistry in Wood Show in 2015 and he shared with me his love for carving small carvings that have “FUN” written all over them. These two photos of the fun facial expressions carved in each face are offered here to encourage other carvers to have fun carving faces in a small format. These novelty carvings offer challenging fun projects to set the carver’s imagination and creativity free to discover a variety of facial expressions that one can carve. And they are fun gifts of friendship and encouragement to give to spread the joy of carving friendship.
The WOOD BEE CARVER often says, “Every carving project is a learning project, every carving is a practice carving project and the only way one learns to carve is to carve.” The only way one learns to carve faces is to carve faces over and over again. Soderholm is showing us a fun way and may we all follow his way by carving fun, small faces with a variety of facial expressions. Thank you Robert for your inspiration and your friendship to the carving family.
Posted by: woodbeecarver in Knives
The Bear Creek Hobo in the photograph above was carved using a Scimitar knife made by Mickey Gaines of the Bear Creek Blades. The knife was made in the continuation of the tradition of knives made by the late Ralph E. Long. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember the old childhood puzzle with random dots jumbled on the page with a number adjacent to each dot? The puzzle was to draw a line from the dot beginning with number 1 to connect with the dot with a number 2 and then number 3, number 4 and so forth until all the dots were connected to reveal a hidden picture. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by: woodbeecarver in Knives
The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver and ever since boy hood days of whittling with an old pocket knife, the knife, any knife, remains a favorite. Even though the WOOD BEE CARVER uses and highly recommends knives made by Helvie Knives, Bud Murray Knives, Dave Lyons Knives, and Dunkle Knives all who make knives designed by the WOOD BEE CARVER, yet from time to time OTHER KNIVES are also used.
OTHER KNIVES are knives the WOOD BEE CARVER has made for his own personal use by using old pocket knife blades to reshape and re-handle into a carving knife. OTHER KNIVES come from the mind of the “Tinker Thinker” whose mind explores the day dream adventures of tinkering with knife blade shapes for making experimental carving knives. Read the rest of this entry »
The process of carving the MOTHER and CHILD is an ongoing study every time it is carved with varying interpretations. It begins with a mental image that has developed in the memory of having seen many interpretations of the Madonna and Child of the Nativity in various artistic presentations. The two photographs above show a miniature Mother and Child in front of a block of wood and a completed carving of Mother and Child. The miniature was carved several years ago as an exercise of creative memory shaping a small block of wood using only a knife. The miniature serves as a point of reference of a mental image growing in its interpretation. A series of photographs showing various views of the completed Mother and Child begin this study. Following will be photos of the progressive stages in the carving of Mother and Child. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by: woodbeecarver in General
It has been said that “variety is the spice of life” and that same spice is experienced by the carver whenever carving a variety of subjects. Most of these “spice of life” carvings are either gifts or destined to be gifts. Each is displayed here in photographic form as a display of carvings done for the fun of it by bringing a smile to the soul of the carver and the recipient.
The variety of Santa pins is destined to become gifts during the holiday season of Christmas. Some are the traditional red and white Santa while others depict “black” Santa, a green hat Santa, a natural wood finish Santa and holly Santa. Read the rest of this entry »
