new Santa ornament

Well I haven't posted much lately so while I am at the computer I will share my latest carving. This was carved last night and the main tool was one of my Helvie signature knives, actually my Wayne Shinlever knife. You know how it is your favorite carving tool is the newest one added to your arsenal.

I was not feeling great last night so don't know if I was testing my skills or just being lazy but the main bulk of this carving was done with one knife. Usually I am utilizing my gouges and other tools during the process but not last night. This was a good time carving as it made me look at certain lines in a new light. When you use a gouge it can be easy to fall into the same old same old of making a quick cut and moving on to the next cut. But those same lines carved with a knife you pay more attention to the depth and angle of the cut.

You may have noticed that I didn't carve any detail into the beard area and I am not sure if I will. This was kind of done in a flat plane style (somewhat) and when this is done the beard doesn't have cut to highlight it. Sometimes it is left with the simple shape and basic color sometimes it can be painted and then the carver comes back and highlights areas with a faint line painted on the edges. The verdict is out as of late on how I will proceed, probably won't make the decision until late this morning or worse case after the Nebraska game. Yeah not a great year for my Cornhuskers but it is part of my heritage so always a fan no matter how the season goes. But whatever I decide (about the carving) I will share more in the next few days.

as always, 

Good night and may God bless

new carving

                          

This is my latest carving, it has been a long while since I have carved a full body carving. I will look to work in a few more of there within the next few weeks as I also carve a few more ornaments for the Christmas season. I may even take this guy and turn him into a Santa carving, who knows.

At least today and beyond for the foreseeable future we will have some sunshine so I will carve out a few roughouts for future use. I will need to check my stock of wood and see what I may need.


Even though we have sunshine the folks down in North and South Carolina don't and even for those that may there will be much to be done for them and their communities, especially South Carolina. Many may know that the storm that came through has caused major damage to South Carolina all throughout the state. Many are without power many are even without tap water. We have many carving friends down in the Carolina's will you please keep them in our thoughts and our prayers in the coming weeks.

as always 

"Good night and May God bless"  

Have you ever heard the phrase "an instructional manual would have been helpful"? This could or should be the words I live by. Lately I have been busy with cartooning, I have been working on some patterns for a carving friend. I even pulled out the water color pencils just cause I can. You who do your own patterns know all you need is a front and side view. Sometimes depending on the size or detail you can get away with just the side view. Here is where the rub comes in.

In cartooning it is suggested that you should show movement even with something as simple as a coffee mug. In addition a straight view, either front or a side is usually not as preferred opposed to the 3/4 view. I had the opportunity to have a person in the publishing industry view some samples of mine years ago. His response was "wrong view for the viewer and there is no movement". Yeah, you tend to remember these things. This was in the 90's and I have made some modifications since then. I also have moved on from doing mostly cartooning to doing more carving, thus you and I are both here. Let me illustrate. Even though the goose is a better angle he would be considered stiff with no movement, while the coffee mug has some movement and expression. The man on the park bench is a simple side view limiting the amount of detail in the character. Let me say this lest I forget, I have always drawn for the pleasure of drawing and none of the cartoons you see would I ever discard. I loved drawing them and I still find pleasure in them
today.

But now we stand at present day and I have to go back to the 90's and begin doing side and front view. They also need to resemble each other. This is a priority in a carving pattern. So I am an old dog once again learning new tricks. Any talents I may have I have learned by trial and error. I have no training per say so I am not as diverse as I would like to be in certain areas. None the less this is where we are and what I have on my plate, and yeah, to a certain degree I love the new challenge.

 Well today I am sharing my pilot Santa ornament. I had done a few of these in the past but they all sold out at a craft show and I never posted any in my shop so this year I wanted to make sure I got a few done for my shop.

I have always had a fascination with the biplane era and always dreamed of flying one. Then in the beginning of our marriage we went down to a fly in for r/c planes and when everyone was done flying their planes and gotten something to eat a friend and co-worker of my wife's ask if we wanted to see his Stearman. Not knowing planes like my wife and the rest of the gang I thought we were going to see a basic plane.

We went over to the hanger and the hanger door began to be raised. As I gradually caught sight of the wheels my excitement began to rise. As the door raised I saw some of the wheel and then the planes legs of the landing gear then by the time the body started to come into view so did the lower wing. Yeah it was a biplane, a bright yellow Stearman biplane. Just being next to one was exciting enough but then with a bit of a grin, the owner of the plane Jeff said "Richard grab a wing and help me pull her out". Long story short before our time was over we all got a short ride up in the heavens in this wonderful open cockpit biplane. I now had firsthand knowledge of what fueled the fires for the young pilots back when aviation was in still young. It was breathtaking, truly breathtaking.

as always, 

"Good night and may God bless"

Three of the ornaments recently carved, painted and sealant applied. These are carved in butternut wood and I am playing around with the look of the wood mixed with the way I apply the paint to give these a nice antique look. I really like this wood for the grain, the only problem is I at times struggle when carving bass wood after carving a few in butternut. The two woods in many ways need a different approach on how to carve certain areas. The bass wood being softer needs more finesse while the butternut I can be a tad more aggressive with my technique. I will in the future carve a grouping of bass wood and then transition to the butternut but going butternut, bass wood then butternut may not work for me. Every carver is different in this regard, this is just the approach I may try and see if it has any impact on my carving.

 

as always, 

"Good night and may God bless"