Follow My Carving - Gaia - Step 4

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issues of Woodcarving Illustrated and Scroll Saw magazines, the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made. This Gaia carving was requested by my dear friend who kindly took the pictures that will be featured in the magazines.

All of the waste material has been removed around the tree and moon elements. Keeping it to an even depth is the trickiest part. Getting into all of the small nooks and crannies where the branches meet requires using extremely small tools. For that reason, the depth can be no more than about 1/4 inch.

As you can see in the close-up, the sides of the tree are not perfectly squared. When the tops of the branches are rounded, the tree will appear to emerge from the body of the Gaia.



The next installment is coming soon.
To see more carvings, please visit the Heartwood Art site.

Follow My Carving - Gaia - Step 3

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issues of Woodcarving Illustrated and Scroll Saw magazines, the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made. This Gaia carving was requested by my dear friend who kindly took the pictures that will be featured in the magazines.

A very small gouge is used to cut a groove along the outside border of the moon and tree. This will act as a “stop cut” that will help prevent the interior of the tree and moon being cut into while the waste material is being removed.

A medium-sized gouge is used to remove the waste material in the more narrow passages, such as those between the limbs and branches. A larger gouge is used in the more open areas, such as those around the tree trunk.

Since the grain is parallel to most of the edges, the wood can easily be shaved away in the direction of the grain with very little cross-grain cutting.

This process requires a good deal of patience to slowly shave away the waste wood to achieve the desired depth. Doing so keeps all the surfaces fairly level, ensuring the depth remains balanced on all sides.

Once an even layer is removed, the small gouge is used to cut another groove around the outline and the shaving process starts again. You can see the gouges in the photo to the right. Of course, the entire process could be done faster with small power carving tools. But, holding the focus necessary to complete the task with hand tools is a meditative pleasure and one of the things I enjoy most about the hobby.

The next installment is coming soon.

To see more carvings, please visit the Heartwood Art site.

Follow My Carving - Gaia Step 2

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issues of Woodcarving Illustrated and Scroll Saw magazines, the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made. This Gaia carving was requested by my dear friend who kindly took the pictures that will be featured in the magazines.

The upper half is now beginning to take shape. The process includes using spoon shaped gouges to round off the edges all the way around the circle of the arms.

The head and neck area require using smaller gouges to remove smaller bits of material at a time. The face area is not fully rounded and the center part of it remains fairly flat.

It’s very difficult to cut across the grain of the wood in the tight neck area. The rest of the material there will be removed during the sanding process.

The upper part of the chest area is shaved down toward the neck. This gives the bust area an appearance of coming forward without having to actually remove very much material. Great care must be taken when removing material from the side of the arms down to the side of the bust area. A nearly flat type of gouge is used and it’s razor sharp so the wood can be shaved like ice.

As you can see in the picture to the right, the bust line is actually not very deep. A special under-cutting technique will be used to give this element more definition and the illusion of greater depth.

The next installment is coming soon.

To see more carvings, please visit the Heartwood Art site.

New Follow My Carving - Gaia Series

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issues of Woodcarving Illustrated and Scroll Saw magazines, the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made. This Gaia carving was requested by my dear friend who kindly took the pictures that will be featured in the magazines.

Gaia was considered a goddess of the Earth by the Ancient Greeks. Most all ancient traditions included a mother Earth, or Great Goddess symbol that represented the continual cycle of life. That tradition is represented in this carving as her arms forming a circle above her head.

Because the Gaia is a fertility symbol, the tree limbs are made to resemble fire, which implies the nature of renewal.

The moon is located in the navel area to represent the central status it still holds in agricultural calendars.

Tree roots at the base represent her deep connection to the Earth energies.

This carving will be a free standing statue and requires a great deal of depth. An inch thick soft pine blank was overlaid with a paper template and cut on the scroll saw. It could have also been cut out with a jigsaw, but the scroll saw gives a much smoother edge, especially around the curves on the one interior cut.

Once the tree pattern has been transferred to the wood, the paper overlay will be removed and rough shaping will begin.

To see more carvings, please visit the Heartwood Art site.