What does it mean to fail? Does anyone enjoy failure? More importantly is the thought of possible failure overwhelming to you.

For many people it is, to many people the thought of failure makes people not even try which in the end is a failure in itself. Did you know that the great Babe Ruth for 29 years held the record for strike outs in his career, he held that record until his record was broken by Mickey Mantle. These guys knew if you are going to swing for the fences you have to be willing to strike out. More importantly they believed they could swing for the fences. I think there are two types of doubters, the ones that have a fear of failure and the other are the ones that can't fathom the idea that they could actually come out on top.

I know right give, me some coffee, this is way too much to think about this early in the morning.

Many of you folks may remember before carving I was busy cartooning. You may also remember back on the 27th of September I had shared that I was working out some patterns for a carving friend. Well from this it has been suggested that I make a book of patterns. A book, that sounds vaguely familiar, oh that's right that book. Yes a year or so ago I had looked into doing a coffee table book of my one liner cartoons. No it never came about, I wasn't ready to swing for the fences and now another book idea is out there, what to do what to do. Well the only thing to do is make a few books. I will still carve some and share them here but I will be busy in the not so distant future setting up some cartoons for a coffee table book as well as designing some cartoons for patterns to carve from. I will welcome prayers for my new venture and will post any and all updates as I progress. in between all this I will share any and all new carvings as I complete them.

as always, 

"Good night and may God bless"

Playing around with a few carvings in the last days of 2015. The first one is an extremely small piece of wood just to see if I could pull that off. I may carve a few more of these but not sure if I would ever put any in my shop or even paint them for that matter but as I say it was just to see if I could and did I like carving that size.

I also pulled out some bass wood and carved a pilot Santa in bass wood, as many may know I have concentrated a lot of my time carving butternut wood as I have a fondness for the way it carves and also for the wonderful grain in the wood. I did hit a snag in that area though.

Butternut has a wonderful grain but when I was first introduced to this wood I read that this is not a good wood to paint as the paint could bleed through the grain. I had by chance begun to put a finish onto the wood to seal the grain to allow me to paint my carvings but this caused its own problem. When you seal the wood the paint can't be absorbed into the wood itself and when applying a sealant over the finished piece you can have some paint chip off. This makes the final sealant stage very tedious. I have begun the research process for this area of concern to see if I can find a modification that will allow me to continue to paint my carvings done in butternut. Until then I will continue the way I work now, knowing that I have to be cautious in the final sealant coating.

The final carving I did was a fun one for me. With this one Santa's cap has gotten twisted up in his beard and the two have begun to wrap around him. This one I think will be wonderful after painting and will give a bit of a candy cane effect as the red of his cap and the white of the beard twist around Santa.

It has been a full year and as we lay this one to rest and prepare for the new year to come we look ahead with excitement and wonder for what God has laid out for us. As a wise man once told me years ago, "as long as I am casting a shadow life is good and I will not worry, because we don't know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the key"

I Corinthians 2:9

as always, 

Good night and may God bless 

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given

Merry Christmas

and more ornaments part II

Well I got some painting done last night but as you may have noticed there was one that I focused on more then the other two and there was a third sitting on the desk that got forgot completely. So the main carving for me, my pilot Santa is done and awaiting the sealant. The other two I may work on tonight if I am not busy addressing envelopes to send out our annual Christmas letter.

It was funny last night as I am cleaning up my table and putting away my tools I glanced at my pilot and wasn't sure I liked the way he was coming along, part of this was I had another carving casting a shadow over this one. Yeah, this guy, I was so happy with this guy and the way I painted his eyes that it influenced the way I looked at the other carving. I don't know if other carvers do this but I am told that I compare carvings one to another, hey what can I say, this is how I am wired. I am still looking to earn my way into the carving community.

Now as Paul Harvey would say is "The Rest of the Story" I came out this morning sat in my chair and picked up my now painted carving and probably due to not being fully awake yet, looked at him all by himself without comparing him to any other carving and you know what, I like him, I like him a lot. I wonder how many other ares of my life I just need to step back and take a fresh look to see if I see it in a new perspective.

Merry Christmas to you and yours and as always,

Good night and may God bless

ornaments, ornaments and more ornaments

Well as you can see by this page and if you have visited my shop I am in ornament mode as we speak though Christmas is fast approaching. Last year around this time I stopped carving ornaments but this year I will maintain a certain stock of new ornaments in my shop as people have told me they shop all year round for items such as mine. We will put this theory to the test in the coming year.

In regard to the ornaments themselves, the size I carve has become an area of interest for me. The two single carvings are my standard size ornaments which are around 6" long and 2" wide. Lately I have begun to carve a smaller version as seen in the middle image, these guys range from 3 to 4 inches long and 1 1/4" wide. I haven't put any of these in my shop as of yet as they may just be ones I give to friends and family, we shall see. They seem to be garnishing positive response from everyone so I may end up putting some in the shop to see how they do. It takes close to the same amount of carving time dependent on the amount of detail so will have to keep this in mind while setting the price if I begin to sell these. I will look into the idea of carving a small pilot to see if I can pull this off.  

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

as always, 

Good night and may God bless