By the suggestion of a friend and fellow carver what once was a mere carving is now a bottle stopper.

On a side note what is fun for me is that the frame around the image behind the bottle stoppers was made from barn wood from my gram pa's barn in Nebraska. This is actually a display I use when doing craft shows, so every craft show a little piece of Nebraska and my family is with me.

as always, 

"Good night and May God bless"

draw

As I was working on some study sticks for casting in an effort for working on facial expressions I carved the pencil to the left. It happen just by chance I had carved the face from a piece of scrap wood and after detailing the face I carved the pencil around the features just to finish it off in a fun way.

Upon sharing this on my pages, some folks showed interest and I carved three more mixing up the facial features and working on improving on areas I felt were weak with my faces. While carving the three and reviewing them after painting a cartoon I had sketched years ago came to mind and from there my mind came up with a thought for yet another pencil carving.




And so I carved the final one today, cowboy pencil who's not afraid to challenge anyone to draw. Corny yes, but funny, well I think so.

as always,

"Good night and May God bless"

Latest efforts

I know I haven't posted much lately so thought I would share these four images as these are the latest carvings I have completed. The first two were special order carvings and the last two were just because. The fist image is a relief carving carved on a corner piece of butternut and the other three are in the round carvings. Of the three, the second image was carved from a 1" piece of bass wood and the other two were carved from a 1 1/2" piece of bass wood.


Also for those interested to an insight of my painting process please visit my Cartoons2Carvings fb page where I have posted two videos on painting the ear of corn carving. Due to size constraints I am unable to post it here.

as always, 

"Good night and May God bless"

where inspiration comes from

So inspired to do another after a note from the young lady who bought my other ear of corn baseball fan. She bought it for her brother-n-law who every year plays on the field from the movie "Field of Dreams" which is what inspired this design. That just moved me and before you know it I was carving this one.

as always, 

"Good night and May God bless"

old design new style

I recently had a request to carve a previous design, my biker Santa ornament. This is how the new one came out, the left side is before paint and the right side is after paint and finish.

I have been modifying the way I paint and have painted a more watered down color both on bass wood and butternut wood. The thing you have to keep in mind is that when you water down a color it also tends to lighten up some so at times I had to add a dark brown or black to maintain a rich yet transparent color to highlight the grain of the wood. I am happy with the direction my painting efforts have taken me lately and will continue to experiment with the colors for future carvings.

as always, 

"Good night and May God bless"