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.
No comments:
Post a Comment