Carving eyes is always a challenge that gives the carver the opportunity to experiment and practice in order to find a method that will work for the carver. The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver who carves eyes using a combination of three cut triangular cuts, notch cuts and delicate slicing cuts. Carving eyes underneath carved glasses presents another step in the challenge of eye carving and yet the same basic method works the same. The photo above shows two faces, one with the form of glasses with a blank flat plane and the second with eyes carved through the frame of the glasses. The left face with the flat plane glasses illustrates the carving of the basic form of the glasses fitted on the face. The right face with the eyes carved inside and behind the frame of the glasses illustrates the end result. Read the rest of this entry »
The Beatles were carved as a commission for the HELVIE COLLECTION using a variety of the Wood Bee Carver Signature Series knives made by HELVIE KNIVES. Knives used included the three SIDE KICK knives #’s 25, 26, 27; the Bumble Bee # 13 and the Viper Bee #22 as depicted in the photo below. Read the rest of this entry »
The term “BLOCK HEAD CARVING” is coined to describe the carving process of carving from a “block” of wood and using one’s “head” in the carving process to shape the wood into a carving project. The use of “head” refers to the carver’s imagination partnering with the carver’s creative carving ability to figure out how to carve an envisioned image. This approach of opening up a block of wood being guided by imagination is to discover in the shaping process the “design by carving”. Often in the process of removing wood chips the remaining carved facets on the shaped block will suggest an innovation in design of the envisioned image. Read the rest of this entry »
The WOOD BEE CARVER approaches each carving project as a learning experience with continuing discoveries in the carving process. Long he has encouraged carvers to do a twenty minute a day exercise of experimenting with a carving tool and a piece of wood to discover a variety of cuts and maneuvers in shaping a piece of wood as the cutting tool slices through the wood. Coupled with that idea is the experience that the more one carves the better one carves because of the ongoing learning process. Carving with greater frequency allows for the carver’s imagination to grow with creativity which contributes to a sharpening of carving skill and creative design. All of which are inherent in the motto: “Would be carvers would be carvers if they would carve wood.” Read the rest of this entry »
CHRISTMAS IS MEMORIES ~ Memories Remembered ~ Memories Being Made ~ Make Some Memories This Christmas.
Rich Smithson of HELVIE KNIVES has invited the Signature Series Knife carvers to carve a caricature carving holding a Signature Series knife. This is the WOOD BEE CARVER’s carving that is a “selfie” using the DRAGON II Signature Series Knife as a cane. Read the rest of this entry »
The carving entitled “Wingtip” is an illustration for a discussion about “Artistic Expressive Opinions” in the design motifs of the Whittle-Carving style of carving only with a knife. These Artistic Opinions are what guides the WOOD BEE CARVER having been discovered in the woodcarving journey of the past forty years of knife carving. That Journey continues to make discoveries and innovations are constantly being employed. Read the rest of this entry »
The SIDE KICK Signature Series Knives were designed to be a combination slicing knife in three sizes for roughing out the basic form of a carving subject. Since the WOOD BEE CARVER carves using a block of wood rather than a sawed out blank or machined rough out, a multiple purpose carving knife is very versatile in shaping the basic form. The subject used in this illustration is of Joseph, the carpenter carved in a block of basswood nine inches tall, three inches wide and two inches thick. The photo on the top right shows the completed carving beside the basswood block to be carved in the roughing out stage using the larger SIDE KICK. Read the rest of this entry »
