A Study of Carved Eyes

Almost every carver is timid and cautious when it comes to carving eyes in a human figure being carved.  Like so much about carving, it takes practice and more practice to become comfortable with carving eyes that look the way the carver thinks eyes should look.

Carving instructors teach carving eyes in a style they have become comfortable in carving but when a student tries to duplicate the instructor’s method, the student’s carved eye just does not match up with the instructor’s carved eye.

It is the WOOD BEE CARVER’s observation and subsequent opinion is that “there is no right way to carve eyes.” Rather there are many ways to carve eyes that would fit the carving project.  The real key is to practice doing eyes until the carver finds a method that fits and even practice enough to develop two or three different styles of eyes to be incorporated in various carving projects.

In order to illustrate that there are many ways to carve eyes, the reader is invited to take a journey on the photo trail of carvings to show different eye styles.  Some of these carvings are antique, some were carved in Europe and Africa and some are carvings of contemporary carvers.

Looking at each photo one will come to a conclusion that for that particular carving the way the eyes were carved fit that carving.  Or for that particular carving the eyes are right but for another style of carving the eyes would not quite fit.  The photo trail becomes a resource library for a variety of eyes that a carver may want to practice and experiment in order to emulate in future carvings.

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For further study on “how to carve eyes” look under “Navigation” and click on “AMAZING DISCOVERIES” and then explore the sites listed under the section “Exploring the Internet”

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