The CLOWN tells the story without words using posture, facial expression, costume, props and elaborate gestures to tell the story in pantomime. One of the goals of wood carving is to create a visual pantomime carved in wood in which the carving tells a story without words. This carving of a clown holding a balloon and a feather is telling a story of a duel between the balloon and feather as to which one is the lightest.  It is a silly story leaving the clown having a puzzled look on his face for not being able to figure out which one is lighter than the other.

Over twenty years ago the Wood Bee Carver used the first carving of a clown holding a feather and a balloon at carving shows to entertain and engage children as they visited my carving display.  I would ask them which one they thought was the lightest between the feather and balloon.  Most children caught the significance that there was no way to tell concluding that the feather and balloon were equal in lightness. One sweet young lady about age 5 said with confidence, “Well everyone knows there is nothing lighter than a feather.”

This latest version of the Duel was fun to carve again and this is the visual pantomime in photography to tell the story of this carving journey. The first section of photos shows the finished carving in panoramic views. The second section will follow the progressive carving process in a visual pantomime.

The progressive visual pantomime begins with the six-inch-tall by and inch and three-quarter basswood block that begins with carving the hat and head first and progresses with drawn guidelines of the body, then carving to basic form and finally progressing to carving the finished details with wood burning the checkered pattern on the coat.  Artist oil paint thinned with boiled linseed oil completed the coloring potion of the process.

Every carving project is a “practice makes progress” endeavor in which “the more one carves the better one carves,” to develop imagination and carving skill to create carvings that tell a visual story without words. The goal is to create carvings that talk in their visual presentation where words are not necessary. Let the carving speak for itself.