The Wood Bee Carver is primarily a knife carver who enjoys the challenge of using only knives to carve various projects.  Relief carving is a challenge of combining a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional surface using a variety of slicing knife blade cuts.

The photo above shows relief carvings carved between 1978 and 1981 as jewelry pins carved in apple wood using only a knife. The photo below of a log cabin scene was carved to demonstrate the usefulness of the SIDE WINDER style blade.

The two photos below are examples of faces carved in rustic flaws in three wood blanks and a love and holly ornament.

The next four photos depict carvings done in Mahogany blocks four inches by two and a quarter inch wide and three quarters of an inch thick.

The last four photos are of Two Old Timers relief at various angles.

Whittle-Relief knife carving is a journey of learning how the slicing action of a carving knife can be used to create a carving on a flat surface as well as developing an eye for angles and perspective. Carvers learn by doing and by the challenge of learning new approaches to carving unfamiliar subject. The motto still applies “Would be carvers would be carvers if they would carve wood,” and therein is the “relief” that comes through creative activity.