Silly hill billy

 So as I wrote earlier I carved the hill billy from the Carving Magazine article. Since I had another piece of wood it would fit on I carved out two more. The difference was that the second one had to be modified due to the length of the wood. Once I was ready to carve I decided to carve this one first since there would be some changes in its design. I basically carved it in the same way I would carve the other one just with minor modifications. I gave him a vest and a shirt and pants opposed to the overalls.

Some of the problems I have had are dealing with getting clean cuts in tight areas. Some of it could be after carving for awhile that the blade is dulling out. Some of it I believe is the technique I use to cut out areas (or lack of that is). I will look through my magazines and see if anyone ever addressed these issues and how to deal with them. I know some carvers use different systems to brush away the fur balls from the wood once they are done carving. I will try to share a few of those in the upcoming segments.

There are so many wonderful carvers out there and most of them teach either through magazine articles, videos or actual classes. Most of these carvers have been carving for years and have a wide array of tools in their arsenal, so they teach from that perspective. This can be hard for the beginner or the intermediate carver trying to get a foot hold on carving.

The answer to this is to take a class or two when ever available. Many carvers post their teaching schedule on their websites. Some magazines have carving clubs listed in the back of their magazines as well. If possible find and join a carving group so that you can feed off of each other in knowledge and skill. Unfortunately in my area there are no carving groups that I have found. As I research and find answers to my questions I will post what I have found here. Any time you have a link or an article that addresses questions being brought up forward them on and I will post them as well.   

So here are a few pictures of my latest attempt at a carving, more to come, same carving time, same carving channel.

Painted up

Well last night I painted my little Santa head so for the most part he is done. Now I did not carve in the eyes due to the size of the piece (I also need to improve my skills in this area) and I didn’t paint them in either. The previous Santa carving that I did was a free hand carving and with this since it had a more cartoon image I did a simplified carving for the eyes and painted it as if it were a cartoon on the page. I didn’t feel that style would match up with this carving so I left it alone.

Years ago I had seen some folk art carvings. With these they just carved out a socket section and painted in the eyes, white area then a dot, normally blue. Back then I copied this style since this was the style that inspired me to carve in the first place. Then about three years ago my boss that gave me two rough cut duck heads for Christmas and that got me temporarily back into carving again. The key event was when I purchased a magazine because it had an article about duck carving. It also had an article about a caricature carver with a wonderful spread on his work. On that day I realized if I was going to carve this was going to be the direction that I wanted to go in. This was either a historical day or a hysterical day, yet to be determined.

So this Santa doesn't have eyes carved or painted. Does this hurt the carving, and or is this a caricature carving no no? Your thoughts are welcome on this issue as always.

My own design

Now I will be the first to admit that I can over think the simplest of things. For the longest time I really battled with the idea of converting a drawing or cartoon to a rough cut for carving. I keep wondering what the process in doing this correctly is.  I had never found a single article that addressed this issue, and wondered why it was such an elusive topic for carvers.  

So while waiting for the answer to my question and to get some practice at carving from a rough cut I opened my summer addition of Carving Magazine. There are many wonderful magazines out there but for my money this is definitely one worth the money, no matter what level of a carver you are. From that I carved my version of the Helvie knife hill billy. This was carved for the article by Mark Akers. His is really a nice carving handle that he has made for Helvie knives. My attempt was not on a knife handle and probably a little larger than his knife handle but was a fun assignment none the less. In the article there is great information on how to carve out the beard and what gouges he prefers. Unfortunately for me the gouges used in the article are not in my arsenal so I had to work with what I had on hand. Which in turn means my hair and beard do not look as good as the one in the article. In the end I was happy with the end result minus the painting (still need to challenge myself in this arena). 

I after completing the hill billy I decided to try my hand at one of my cartoons, the one in the previous blog post. You can get an idea of the size based on the pencil sharpener it rest on. I need to work on carving eyes but other than that I was very content with the way this one came out. The biggest obstacle was the actual rough cut, the pattern was obvious and this alone made this a success. For those of you who don’t over think things this might not make sense but for those that do like me the light finally came on. I will be applying paint in the next day or two and will post it when it is complete. One thing I take away from both carvings is that it is how you interpret the rough cut not how you layout the pattern for rough cut.

For the two of you who read this blog questions and comments are always welcome yet not required. Feel free to contact me any time.

Painting wood versus paper

As I explained before I painted the Santa using my limited supply of colors. I actually don’t think of this as a bad thing necessarily since it has been years since I have painted any of my carvings. My skills as an artist have improved in regards to painting which is good but what is bad is that most of my work on paper is with water color, mostly water color pencils.

With water color you have, like all paints, the effects used with layering the paint. The difference though is the effect of the somewhat transparency in color. Using the right technique you can either darken or lighten the color after it is applied. You can actually remove color in areas as well, which helps with shading and texture. With painting carvings you are not applying any shading techniques, you are applying color to match a certain look to your carving. If you are carving a cowboy has he been on the range for some time or is he all cleaned up to go courting? The way he is painted will answer many of these questions.

I will share more on this as I learn more myself, but for now I need to continue to improve my carving technique. I want my cartoons to come to life in wood. Here is a cartoon of Santa I did awhile back. Although I like the Santa carving I did I don’t know if it matches with my cartoons yet, but they will, one day they will.  

A look back and why

Back in the early 90’s when I had just begun carving I wasn’t as particular about the wood I would carve, I at times got creative in my carvings. I worked at a local hardware store and as I was putting away some stock returns when I got an idea. You see I had been putting away some chair legs that a customer bought and then couldn’t use. As I was putting them back in the bind where they belonged, being that they were made from wood of course my first thought was “what could I carve this into”. Well here is the result of my efforts.

Now you might wonder why do I spend time with showing old carvings like this, well for one it will be a way for me to track my progress as a carver. Also it is my way of showing people that you can be creative with your craft, but more importantly, if you just go at it without any effort to learn the process then it will limit the skill level you can reach. It all depends on what you want to do and what you want to do with it.

“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.” 

Michelangelo