The motto of the WOOD BEE CARVER  “Would be carvers would be carvers if they would carve wood,” was coined in the mid 1970’s to imply that wood carvers are always learning.  Carving is learned primarily by carving with the experience that the more one carves the better one carves.  Simply thinking about carving, reading carving magazines, carving books or watching instructional videos while day dreaming about carving is not the same as actually using a cutting tool to shape a piece of wood.  It is that familiar experience of using the cutting tool slicing through the wood in the carving process that becomes the best learning experience.

Learning to carve is an ongoing process that grows with each time one carves.  The growth in learning by doing is enhanced the more often one carves.  One who carves every day will grow in learning more than carving only once a week or once a month or the next carving seminar.  If one is not familiar with the various cuts the cutting tool can do in shaping a block on wood, then one struggles with making any cuts.  That struggle is handcuffed by being afraid of making a wrong cut because one has not yet learned the various cuts that can be made.  That struggle becomes more difficult from the lack of practice of shaping the wood by impeding the ability to see or imagine a cut before it is made.  Looking and studying a completed carving either as a model go by or a photo of a carving without imaging how the cuts were made to shape the carving will confuse the occasional carver.  Practice, practice, practice is only advised because it works and if one practices doing nothing one gets pretty good at doing nothing.  On the other hand, if one carves more, one learns and becomes a better carver in that kind of practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Smithson of HELVIE KNIVES pulled a fast one on two of his Signature Knife friends by asking each one to carve a block of basswood into a knife blade holder for the other friend without telling us that we were each doing it for one another.  Read the rest of this entry »

HELVIE KNIVES announces the introduction of the MINI MERTZ II ~ # 6-2 Signature Series detail knife.  This new and additional version of the MINI MERTZ utilizes a different blade material and shape as well as handles shape. Read the rest of this entry »

My wife, Frances, commissioned Rich Smithson of  HELVIE KNIVES  to create the wood burned art depicting the logo and names of WOOD BEE CARVER Signature Knives made by Rich, Holli and Skylar Smithson who are owners and manufacturers of  HELVIE KNIVES.  Thanks for a cherished gift.

This Plumber’s Helper caricature of a plumber riding a Helper like it was a pogo stick is a humorous way of illustrating how that Helper could be used in the imagination of the absurd. A caricature is always an “exaggeration of realism,” both in the carved figure and in the story it is telling.

The child in each of us remembers the suction cup toy guns and bow and arrow toys that would shoot a suction cup missile.   Licking the inside of the suction cup with moisture would cause the suction cup to stick to the object it touched. The suction cup was very much like the “plumber’s helper” which was often used in childhood cartoons like the suction cup toys.

This caricature was carved out of a three inch tall by inch and half square block of basswood and painted with artist oil paints thinned with boiled linseed oil. Read the rest of this entry »

The iconic Mother and Child image was created a long time ago in antiquity using a simple design whose beauty is in its simplicity.

This woodcarving is an interpretation carved only with a knife in butternut wood.  The three inch by two and half inch carving is finished with an oil finish followed with a coat of Deft and then Howard Feed-N-Wax.

The various views from different angles give a panoramic view of the Mother and Child carving whose simple beauty is the story it tells ~ a Christmas Story of Love.