Sean Reynolds is a very enthusiastic budding carver who is so eager to learn and is growing in his carving experience.  So much so that he experienced a tendonitis in his wrist that side lined his carving activities for awhile but is now back at it by pacing himself in a healthy manner.  He is developing an inner eye to see within a block of wood what needs to be carved away to set free the image hiding inside the wood.

The following photographs are examples of his advancement and growth in the carving pursuits.  And besides that he is fun to talk with about the wonderful world of wood carving as evidenced by the many friends he has made on the Wood Carving Illustrated Forum.  Whenever he visits me from time to time for a carving chat and carving session his eagerness indicated that he has been bitten by the “carving bug.”

Egg Noggins are carved out of basswood hen eggs to depict a caricature face.  This photo journey are of recent “Noggins” carved for instructional purposes of the A-B-C’s of Face Carving.  Each is finished with Howard Feed N Wax to bring the carved wood surface to life.

Tony Perry is a fellow member of the Dayton Carvers Guild (Ohio) and beside carving whimsical houses in tree branches, he makes wonderful carving knives out of  old carpenter hand saw blades.  He fashions each in a unique handle shape that has a surprising comfortable fit  to the carving hand.  Here are two that he made for me according to my design of the blade shape.  Tony is a “sharp” friend.  Thanks Tony

Bob Holmes has been carving only a few months since March when he was a student in a introductory class I taught for senior citizens.  The carving bug got hold of him and he has not been able to put the carving knife down as he continues to fulfill my adage, “The more one carves the better one carves.” He is also a testament to the reality that one is never too old to learn something new.  It is my pleasure to share his most recent carving done all on his own using only the posting about Cy Clone on this site. Read the rest of this entry »

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Everybody loves a clown be it someone who is “in clown”, someone who is clowning around to bring a little humor to life, a circus clown, a picture or art work depicting a clown or simply the subject for a wood carving.  The photographic essay of recent carvings of clowns is presented in this posting as a bit of humor as well as examples of “Clowning Around” with woodcarving. Read the rest of this entry »

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Next to carving eyes and next to carving the human face, carving hands can be a challenge to carvers.  Hiding hands in a pocket is the easy way out and the quickest way to produce a boring carving.  Like any other carving project, carving hands is a matter of first taking a good look at hands, studying hands and then practice carving hands on a scrap piece of wood.  These “scrapper” lessons are beneficial in the long run. Read the rest of this entry »

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First things first are always important in the carving process.  Carving a good foundation of the basic form first allows the details to be carved in their proper places.  These four photographs show “carved to form” caricatures ready for detail carving to take place.  The first two photographs show a block of basswood having the top corners rounded into a dowel shape to receive the hat and head of the caricature as well as the back of the arms and shoulder area sliced forward on the back side of the block.  Each block is standing profile with a “carved to form” caricature for comparison.  The next two photographs show four “carved to form” caricatures to be studied as a short tutorial in “form ready for detail.” The lesson of this “Short Tutorial” is that there are no short cuts to carving the details.  First the form and then the detail.