“A picture is worth a thousand words,” and sometimes looking at the pictures tells more than what can be read. Thus this HOBO FACES STUDY is just that, a study of pictures, so click on each one to enlarge to study the features and look for how the face was proportioned using the RULE OF THREE as discussed in the three previous posts. Keep in mind that each of these hobos were carved using only a knife in a style I call “Whittle-Carving.”
In the two previous posts Rube and Cedrick were introduced. They stand five inches tall and are now joined by Half Pint who stands two inches including the base he is standing on. Half Pint is the same design and pose of Rube and Cedrick and the RULE OF THREE was used on Half Pint to maintain body and facial proportions.
In every block of wood there is a carving subject waiting to be set free by carving away all the wood that does not look like the subject imagined. Or so the old saying goes.
Such is the case of the subject of carving a hobo envisioned in a block of wood. The first photo shows Sage of the Road standing in front of a basswood block. Sage was used as a model for the Hobo Rube whose story was told in the February 26, 2009 posting of “Carving Hobo Rube.” The second photo shows Rube standing in front of a block of basswood from which Hobo Cedrick will be carved in this posting. Read the rest of this entry »
Sage of the Road is a hobo carving that is serving as a model for another hobo carving of Rube who will be carved out of the basswood block standing behind Sage of the Road. The block is five inches tall by two and a half inches square. Hobos are nostalgic and romantic figures of a by-gone era that some call the “good ole days.”
Hobos began around the American Civil War and were itinerant labors who traveled all over the country in search of adventure as well as work. It has been said that a “hobo is one who travels for work, a tramp travels but will not work and a bum neither travels nor works.” Some say that the term “hobo” is a shortened version of “hoe boy” or an itinerant farm laborer who carried his hoe with his bindle bag tied to the hoe handle. Read the rest of this entry »
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The carving subject called “The Fundamentalist” has been carved several times. The August 20, 2008 posting offers a tutorial on carving a six inch tall Fundamentalist. In this posting the approach will be to offer several photographs as a visual study in the various stages in the carving of two Fundamentalist, twelve inches tall. A visual study is to study each photograph by allowing the eye and mind to explore the carving progressions imagining the carving process. Sometimes this is the best way for self discovery rather than having everything spelled out without reading between the lines. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, February 12, 2009 is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. In the left hand column of this blog under “Cool Links” click on a link entitled “Abraham Lincoln Historical Site” which is about the “Congressional Funeral Delagation” standing in front of Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois home. The site shows photographs of carvings of the twently two congressmen depicted in the historic photograph along with historic biographical information written by historian Gary Kersey.
Snowmen are fun little carvings that seem to catch the imagination of anyone who has a memory of making a snowman out of the first snow during childhood. In a way snowmen are one of the few positive things one can remember about snow unless one is fond of snow sports. The snow I prefer is that of memory and of carved snowmen because I am like the fellow who said he likes the four seasons of Summer= Early Summer, Summer, Late Summer and Next Summer. Read the rest of this entry »
Don Worley taught a class on how to carve his NO SEE-UMS to members of the Miami Valley Wood Carving club members in Middletown, Ohio in January, 2009. The three No See-Ums in the photograph are the ones I did in his class. No See-Ums are fun carving subjects that become addictive in that one leads to doing another and then another. Read the rest of this entry »
