FACE BLOCK carved with four faces in a segment for a walking stick raffle for the Miami Valley Woodcarving Show ~ March 5 and 6 in Middletown, Ohio. Basswood block measures two inches by three inches and the coloration is a stain of Raw Sienna mixed with boiled linseed oil. Faces were carved using only a knife is the Whittle-Carving style of the WOOD BEE CARVER.
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.
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 »
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 »
