The WOOD BEE CARVER carves a variation on the “garden variety” of Gnomes associated with the Scandinavian origin of these delightful characters. Being mythical characters hidden from the naked eye only to be seen in one’s imagination, Gnomes can be any interpretation of the artist’s imagination. Thus the style of gnome carved by this author is of the Southwest Ohio variety of gnomes who favor a floppy style hat rather than the traditional “dunce” pointed hat. Clothing style is a little different as well but then all such variations from the original image are in the artist’s own imagination.
Gnomettes are a recent innovation that came about by request from a ninety six year old collector of a Wood Bee Carver gnome who she said her gnome was lonely and needed a companion. Read the rest of this entry »
Scrapper Face Study is using scrap blocks of wood to carve a variety of faces for creative fun as well as study of creative variations in facial expressions. Read the rest of this entry »
Dave Stetson, carver, instructor and author, is one of the founding members of the Caricature Carvers of America whose style of caricature carving bares his own signature of movement and animation. Such a style does not happen without a lifelong pursuit of the art of imbuing life into a carving by continuous study, observation, experimentation and imagination. Three of his carvings in the WOOD BEE CARVER’s collection will serve as a visual tutorial to begin seeing animation in the various angles of the pose and posture of a caricature figure. By visually studying each carving in the series of photographs one can begin to see how to emulate similar animation in one’s own carvings. (Click on photos to enlarge.) Read the rest of this entry »
Norb Hartman recently gifted me with a personalized love spoon that has a “WOOD BEE” at its top who has a carving knife in each of its hands as can be seen in the photos above that frame a picture of Norb. Read the rest of this entry »
The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver who has developed a style of carving called “Whittle-Carving” to imply carving using only a knife. The most efficient use of a carving knife is to utilize a slicing cut as often as possible. A slicing cut is similar to slicing bread, slicing steak or the action of the guillotine’s skewed blade slicing as it slides down the track of the guillotine. The cutting edge of a knife is made up of very small cutting teeth similar to teeth on a hand saw and it is these teeth when used in the slicing action that separates the wood fibers for a clean cut. Using the knife blade with a wedge cut crushes fibers before the edge cuts the fibers resulting in a fuzzy and cloudy surface. A slicing cut creates a clean and slick surface. The scimitar blade shape with its curved cutting edge slices in both the push and pull stroke. It can also make slicing cuts upside down and sideways as well as right side up. The concave shape of the back of the scimitar blade allows for reaching into tight areas where another blade shape would be impaired. Read the rest of this entry »
