Two three day classes in Whittle-Carving were held at the Burchfield Nature and Art Center in West Seneca, NY April 20 through 25.  Twelve students made up the first three day class and thirteen students made up the second three day class. Read the rest of this entry »

This Whittle Doodle  was carved to be one segment in a Friendship Cane to be given as a surprise at a forthcoming woodcarving show to a person who has contributed much to the carving community.  A Whittle Doodle is doodling with a knife to carve faces in relief and embellish blank space with free hand chip carving.  Click on each photo to see a larger version.  The monochrome finish is artist oil paint Raw Sienna mixed with Boiled Linseed Oil followed by a protective finish of Deft and then Howard Feed and Wax. The block of basswood is three inches tall and approximately two inches square.

Bud Murray  makes two knives for me according to a design that was developed through trial and error of a blade shape that works best for the style of Whittle-Carving  done by the WOOD BEE CARVER.   He makes two sizes with the Murray 529  being two  inches long and the Murray 539  being an inch and half long.  Both have the same blade design of a scimitar blade shape with a notch in the extended tang.  The handle is four inches long with a pistol grip at one end and a side finger grove on the side near the blade.

The Murray knives are one of the three knife makers that are recommended by the WOOD BEE CARVER  as stated in an earlier post entitled “Three Knives Recommended.” Information for ordering either Murray 529 or Murray 539  can be found under Cool Links by clicking on “Bud Murray Knives.”

The River Valley Wood Carvers  hosted a three day carving seminar in Taylor Mill, KY on April 12, 13 and 14.  The eight Survivor Students pictured are (left to right) Gitta Wahrenburn, Rick Bissonnette, Bill Wright, Don Potter, David Chadwick, Dick Middleton, Bud Miller and Suzanne Millay. Read the rest of this entry »

Don Stephenson,  my artist friend who continues to come up with neat carving ideas has done it again with a “Hillbilly Drawing.”   This hillbilly captures the mental image of how most people picture a hillbilly.  All art is an interpretation of an idea, an image or a memory.  Art is also fluid as one interpretation flows into another interpretation so that one subject can have many interpretations without any duplication of theme, appearance or appeal.

A drawing of a hillbilly is a two dimensional interpretation while a carving of that same hillbilly becomes a three dimensional interpretation of the two dimensional drawing.  A drawing of a hillbilly is in one medium of art while a carving of that same hillbilly is in another medium.  Don Stephenson’s drawing of a hillbilly was used as inspiration for carving a hillbilly out of an inch and half square by six inch tall block of basswood using a Bud Murray 539 knife as depicted in the first photograph in the photo journey below which shows various views of the completed carving of a hillbilly.  The carving is finished with artist oil paint Raw Sienna mixed with Boiled Linseed Oil to produce on monochrome finish in order to emphasis that  “texture is color.” Read the rest of this entry »

Five students gathered at the Woodcraft Store in Centerville, OH on March 24, 2012 for a class on the subject of Egg Noggins.  Survivor students in the photograph are (left to right) Edgar Brumbaugh,  Andy Zinmeister, Leonard Ballard, Wendy Beck and Jeannette Hamilton.

Egg Noggins  are faces carved out of a basswood hen egg using only a knife to shape the wood.  Whittle-Carving exercises prepared the students to carve a face in the wooden egg using slicing cuts with the knife.  These exercises included shaping practice blocks of wood with a series of notch cuts to lay in the landmarks of the face using the Rule of Three of Facial Proportions  with a notch cut at the hairline, followed by a notch cut at the eye brow area, followed by a notch cut for bottom of nose nostrils and finally the bottom of the chin. Slicing angled cuts shaped the planes and angles of the face in order to provide a good foundation to receive the detail cuts for eyes, nose, mouth, smile line and ears. The Three Version Face Study Stick was used for the first exercise. Read the rest of this entry »

 Myron Compton  of Pekin, Indiana, is pictured with his winning carving with a Lynn Doughty  original carving of Quigley Down Under.  Lynn conducted in 2010 an on-line carving contest in the Old West Challenge to carve Quigley Down Under.  Myron won the contest in which he received Lynn’s original.

Woodcarving is an open door to friendships made and being made.  A carving can be an extension of the personality of the carver, so much so that we can know the carver through their carving without having met one another in real life.  I became a friend of Myron Compton long before we ever met.  It happened by way of viewing some of his carvings as he had posted them on the Wood Carving Illustrated website Forum. Viewing those carvings as well as reading some of his comments about carving struck up an acquaintance without actually meeting.  We did meet a few years ago when Myron and his wife visited the Artistry in Wood Show in Dayton, Ohio and right away there was a reunion of kindred spirits.

It is time now to introduce a carving friend to all who visit this site through pictures of his carving along with his own words about his journey of carving. Such a visit is intended to encourage visitors to carve more and extend their personality through their own carvings to make more carving friends.  Let Myron become your friend through his words and carving interpretations depicted in the photographs. Read the rest of this entry »