Carving to Cut Out - Making the Mindset Switch

Mastering a new technique takes patience and tenacity. With this current project, even clarifying the vision has become an exercise in shifting my mindset from carving to cut out. I'm not only changing style, I'm changing mediums. And my first draft drawing is glaring evidence that I'm only half way there with the shift.

My aesthetic senses pique on each extreme of the continuum between simple elegance all the way over to complex to the nth degree.

This draft is halfway in between. Well, not quite. It's elegant lines trying to be complex.

The lines are thick. Every limb and branch has a definite start and end point. And there are no weaknesses in them, meaning little variation in thickness. They all taper in a uniform way.

Each of the limbs has plenty of negative space. Each forked branch has plenty of room to make clean drill holes and turns for the blade.

In other words, each tree is a great beginner carver project.

That's not what I was after.

Don't Throw Out the Baby

But, the draft does have value. If I decide to do a book for Fox Chapel Publishing, I'll need lots of patterns at all levels. So, this one can go in the intermediate project section as is, or each tree can be a standalone beginner project.

I'm particularly proud of the moon in this draft. (Not shown in the picture because it's still a work in progress.)

The clouds that run across it will be negative space. I'm still working out how to anchor it to the border of the frame. And, I'll want to cut it out last so I can practice using the waste wood from the negative space of the tree cut outs.

Shift in Medium

I know where I went wrong with this project. I'm still drawing from a carving mindset and leaving in as much large wood as possible to keep a solid wood blank from exploding.

That requires leaving the whole trunk of the tree in the picture - anchoring it's roots at the base and its branches to at least three sides of the border.

And, I gave no consideration to the new material I'll be working in, which is plywood. That lifts the requirement for so much bulk wood structures in the picture. And the branches no longer need  more than one anchor. It also means that the majority of the branches can float freely, without having their ends touch the border.

In other words, it's not a delicate piece. The art of it can be more bold and daring. I don't have to worry about it exploding, or keeping things apart enough to get a carving tool in between at funny angles.

I can have a cut in the wood as thin as the blade itself. And I can have a teeny tiny branch sticking out in the air all by itself, with only one anchor point. But, the most important part, I don't need a trunk to give the piece girth.

Shift to Branches

The complexity I crave has nothing to do with the trunk. It's in the limbs and branches.

Last evening I went down a rabbit hole on Pinterest, looking at art where limbs come into the frame from no obvious source. It's gorgeous. And it's inviting. Our minds naturally fill in the phantom tree. In turn, that extends the art beyond the frame.

I live in an established neighborhood where the developers where kind enough to leave as much old growth as possible. In any direction I turn I can count 20 mature trees that are at least 3 stories tall.

There are woods behind the houses on each side of the street with groves of spindly trees punctuated by a huge anchor tree. The little ones make for a pleasant and interesting backdrop. Perfect for the layered piece I'm planning.

It was in the low 60s today, which is unseasonably warm for February. My iPad and I took a short walk around the yard and up the street a bit, snapping images all along the way.

For each shot I tilted the camera up or zoomed in to focus more on the branches than the trunk. I'm only after pieces of the tree. And, it should be fun cropping them even more on the computer to capture just the right framing.

These shots will serve as my inspiration for the next set of drafts. Should be fun to mix different tree frames for each tier of the piece. Right now I'm aiming for three layers. One for a big limb and its branches in the foreground. Then a grove of thin trees in the middle layer. And perhaps the moon and an even smaller, less detailed grove of trees for the bottom layer. Or, perhaps the moon and another limb and branches.

We'll see.

Zen and the Art of Tracing

I do a lot of tracing as I create carving patterns. There’s a peacefulness to the process that requires keeping the integrity of a mood. And, there’s a little time travel involved, and a little music too. See what I mean.

Pattern Formation

I start my patterns from an idea of the overall shape and mood I want to carve.
Yes, tree shapes have a mood.

At least they do to me.

This gnarly tree has hard turns and crooks in the branches.



Where this limb has many gently curved branches. It has a flow.



Making the pattern for it was a series of long flowing lines. Whereas with the gnarly tree, each line was short, with frequent turns.

Devil in the Details

When first drawing a full draft, it’s easy to forget the mood of the tree. It could start with flowing branches and end up with lots of interesting crooks.

That’s where tracing comes in.

I trace parts of the pattern that hold the right mood consistently.


Sometimes those are on opposite areas of the paper.

Sometimes it’s just a perfect limb.

Light Table

 

My little light table is the workhorse of this process.

I can stack a few layers of perfect pattern parts together and try different configurations. That’s a lot faster than drawing them all out.

Flipping the paper to start a mirror image on the opposite side of the tree is a neat trick. Really helps keep the tree in balance.

When I have an interesting fit, I slip a clean sheet on top and trace the new grouping.

Tracing Time Travel

Michael Hedges is one of my favorite musicians. In fact, he is the only musician I’ve ever seen live in concert that made me want to become a roadie and travel to every city on the rest of his tour. (Since I’m a published composer myself and professionally ran sound for a lot of folks in those days, that’s saying a lot.)

His presence is so peaceful and yet so powerful. Like a big creek.

I remember watching a Wyndham Hill video where he was featured. They had a little quip from him before he went on stage.

He said you can listen to the sound you just made, the sound you’re making, or the sound you’re about to make.

Tracing is like that.

It’s a Matter of Focus

I wrote a little about this in Zen and the Art of Scrollsaw Maintenance.

There’s a type of focus where you become one with the line, the blade, and the shadow of the blade. It’s all one thing and you’re one with it.

But tracing is a softer focus. You can think about the line you just made, the line you’re making, or where you want to take the line next.

And that may not be an exact replica of the line being traced if it doesn't feel right.

Like Drawing Chinese Calligraphy

Often I notice that I’m drawing with my elbow and wrist locked in a certain position. My shoulder is moving the pencil around the page when I trace. Have you ever seen someone paint Chinese characters? It’s a little like that.

Naturally, drawing from the shoulder affects the flow of the line. It’s a broader stroke than I can make with my wrist.

So, when the flow of a line during the trace feels like it should go a different direction, my shoulder is where that feeling resides.

It’s a little like playing guitar. My elbow does most of the playing. My wrist only gets involved for finesse on a strum or when picking. (If you watch a flamenco guitarist, you’ll only see their fingers move except for the occasional hard strum.)

Erase and Trace

I go through erasers like crazy. And because I draw such bold lines, after a while I can hardly see if the new lines have the right flow.

Tracing a new draft is a great way to get a fresh start. There are no distractions and I can clearly see any line that breaks the mood.

New Eyes

I’m finished with the first draft of my new carving. I need to walk away for a day or two so I can see it cold. I’ll be looking for anything that is out of character with the integrity of the mood of each element. (There are three in this carving.)

Tracing the Cut

Once I’m satisfied with the aesthetics, then I’ll switch brain sides and look at it from an engineering viewpoint. Since these new carving will be made from plywood, strength is not as much a concern as it is on my single ply carvings. I have to design those so they won’t explode.

Then I’ll be tracing the lines with a blade in my mind, to determine where the access drill holes will be and to ensure that the blade can make each change of direction.

In other words, I stop looking at the carving, and start looking at all the negative space that will eventually become waste wood.

But that’s a focus we’ll save for another day.

New Carvings and Site on the Way

Four years! It’s hard to believe that’s how long it’s been since my last post here. I’m back, and taking my carvings and this site in a new direction. The focus is still trees, but going 3D in a different way. See what I’ve been up to for the last four years and what’s in store for the carvings.

Sidelined

In 2010 I was happily carving along and learning to play cello. I even had a book deal in the works with Fox Chapel Publishing. They’re the folks who own most of the carving magazines that featured me. 

And then a shoulder injury sidelined me. Seems I had a little too much bone in there and it was hitting in places it shouldn’t, causing injury. The surgery was pretty minor. The recovery took about two months.

New Business Launch

Well, not really a launch, more like a final push. In 2010 I was at the beginning of a serious three year push to make BlogAid my full-time work, and leave a 30 year career as an electronics engineer. (I now help non-geeks have successful sites with WordPress, SEO, content, conversion, security, and performance. I teach, train, consult, test, build, and document and I LOVE IT!!!!!)

During my shoulder recovery the business finally started catching fire and I had to drop all of my hobbies and social life to start working two full time jobs, seven days a week.

It worked!

I left my day job in the corporate world in March 2013.

Getting My Life Back

Part of the change meant switching the carving room and my office. I wanted the bigger room for the office so I could have comfy furniture for taking breaks.

But more importantly, I wanted a window with a view from my desk. It overlooks the back yard and woods. And the other window across the room is all tree!! I watched it bloom this past spring. What a joy.

My day is filled with trees and sky and critters any time I look up from the computer monitor. That’s just good for the soul.

And necessary.

For the last 15 years of that old day job I was on the road. I had an office with a view. The last thing I wanted was to feel cooped up working my new job.

New Desk Lead to New Carvings

I had my desk situated in the corner of my old office. It’s just not the right shape for the new office.

I also found that I grew weary of sitting all day. 

I wanted a sit/stand desk.

In my previous career, I was a bench tech for about 10 years. I already knew that I’d be happy with a standing desk.

Wow, they’re expensive!!

So, I decided to put my current desk up on stilts while designing and building a new desk.

Desk Plans

You can find just about anything online these days. Found plenty of DIY plans and videos for L shaped desks, which is what I want.

And then I found pipes. 

I probably stayed on that site for two hours – visiting all of the blogs of folks who had made their own desks using products from SimplifiedBuilding. 

 

And I have to say, as a content marketer, I was totally impressed with how they involved the community and made it so easy to get a custom design. Heck, they even have all of their supplies available for free CAD programs too.

Carved Panels

The backside of my new desk will face out into the room. All of those cables and the PC and other office equipment and stuff under the desk is going to look messy. We can’t have that in my nice new office.

I was inspired by one example I saw where a partial wood panel was hanging from the top of the desk. It was clipped from behind to the horizontal stabilizer pipes.

That was it!!

Carved wood panels!! 

Some nice colored cloth behind them and no one would ever see the underside of the desk. 

Brilliant!!

Going Bigger Meant No Carving

Design ideas were floating through my head every day. 

But working big means working in plywood. And that means no carving.

These would be cutouts only.

Okay, stencils can be very complex and interesting. But they leave me flat. (haha)

I craved dimension.

Panel Stack

It took a while, but I finally found a way to have my cutout and dimension too.

The new carvings will be a serious of stacked panels. Each is a carving by itself. And then spacers will be added between each layer, to give it added dimension.

I’ve already got the first draft of the drawings finished. Working out the details now.

More on the Way

It’s good to be back, both with carving and on the blog.

A new website is on the way too. Much has changed in the four years I’ve been absent from this site. 

A new design and full integration is already in the works.

Can’t wait to share it all with you!!!

This is just the blog part. Click here to see the site and my previous carvings.

Subtractive Art

Most of my creative endeavors, including composing music and writing books, are considered additive art forms. Painting would also be included in this class because each of them builds one thing on another to create a whole.

Carving is the only truly subtractive art form I practice. It has taught me how to be a better writer, both of music and text. To create a carving from a solid piece of wood, I remove everything that is not the art.

There is a quote floating around about being an author. I don’t know who originated it, but it goes something like this: Being a writer is easy. You just stare at a blank page until you begin to sweat blood from your brow.

Once I’m past that hurdle, I allow words to flow as they will until the muse is exhausted and then I begin the editing process. That’s where the carving experience comes into play. I begin chipping away at anything that distracts attention from the focal point of the piece.

The main tool I have been honing lately is clarity. I began that process while researching the material that five years later became a book titled The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom. At the time, I had not entertained the idea of writing a book. I simply wanted to be clear on a few concepts that had surfaced in pop culture that attempted to marry ideas from quantum physics with New Age thought.

Since then, I’ve combined clarity with the razor-sharp tool I seemed to have brought into this world with me, which was focus. Together they make an amazing pair at chipping away the superfluous and helping me get to the root of the mystery.

I’ve only been carving for a few years. I’m still learning and exploring, but I can already tell that this is a fine choice of hobby for me because of how it has already enriched the quality of my life. And, it’s kind of cool to walk down the hall and see the tangible representation of those lessons hanging on the wall. I can’t do that with a book or a song.

When is a Tree Dead?

The other night I watched a repeat of one of my favorite shows on NPT. It’s titled Tree Safari: A Sculptural Journey and it tells the story of a trip that world renowned woodcarver Brad Sells made to Africa. He was in search of some special wood called pink ivory.

The massive trees from which pink and red ivory come are extraordinarily slow growing, meaning that they have very tight growth rings. The wood is so dense that it is nearly as hard as a rock.

The trees are protected by the local governments because they are so rare. Special permission must be obtained to purchase and transport the wood, which cannot be removed from the country as a whole log. But, before any wood removal can be done, permission must also be sought from a higher authority.

The trees are primarily located in Zulu country where they are considered sacred. The bark from them is used for medicinal purposes as well.

Brad Sells is a spiritual man. He didn’t go to Africa simply in search of trees. He looked forward to interacting with the people who had tree knowings. When told that he would have to consult with a revered tribe elder and shaman, Brad was honored to be in the presence of wisdom that had been passed down through generations of a people still intimately connected with their natural surroundings.

Credo “Baba” Mutwa is the most venerated Zulu Sanusi in the country and whose permission had to be given for Brad to remove any wood from the area. When asked which tree Brad had in mind, he said that it was one that already showed signs of dying, to which Mutwa replied:

"When is a tree dead? Because we, who grow up amongst trees know that even a dead tree is alive. So, it’s just a funny question, when is a tree dead? Some trees become more alive when dead than when they were alive."

The spiritual implications of those words ring in my mind every time I sit down to carve. I’m carving trees from trees.

I can also look at the fallen limbs and branches in the woods behind my house and see that they have become food for the ground as well as for a multitude of crawly things. Plus, they serve as shelter and hiding places for small furry creatures. I see twigs of those fallen trees scattered among the other trees in the form of bird’s nests that will house another generation of winged things for a time.

So, when is a tree dead?

I have no plans to remove a piece of pink ivory wood from Africa. But I would like to take a safari; a spiritual one to sit at the feet of Sanusi Mutwa for a while and see what else I can learn.

Zen and the Art of Scrollsaw Maintenance

Carving has taught me how to be a better writer and editor. Simply remove everything that is not the art.

Removing the waste wood from my tree relief carvings requires a scroll saw, pictured below. At the top, you'll see the mechanism that holds the upper end of the thin strip of blade. There is a matching mechanism below the table of the saw that holds the other end. The blade is reciprocated up and down as the wood is presented for cutting. It all works a little like a sewing machine. The blade is like the needle and the wood is like the cloth. Scroll saw cutting is akin to a cross between embroidery and straight line sewing.



The blade must be kept at enough tension to properly cut, but not so tight that it is no longer flexible enough to allow cutting around curves. There is a knob above the upper mechanism (not shown) that works like a guitar tuning peg. In fact, setting the tension on the blade is a lot like tuning a guitar string. I pluck the blade as I tighten until the desired pitch is reached that let's me know it is at the right tension. Finding the right pitch requires a bit of practice. I've broken a number of blades from either being too loose or too tight.

You'll notice that there are several holes in each interior section of the carving at every point that has too acute an angle for the blade to turn. The blade has to be released at the top, passed through the hole, and then re-tensioned for each section cut. So, I get a lot of practice at setting the tension.

There are two other elements of the scroll saw shown. The silver element is an LED light that shines directly on the point that is being cut. The black element is a blower that removes the sawdust away from the area being cut. Both are on flexible shafts so they can be positioned to suit. Both become active only when the blade is cutting, which is why you don't see a spot of light in the picture.

As you can imagine, cutting out the waste wood requires intense focus. I find it to be a rather meditative exercise. When the spot light is on, the blade casts a shadow. Because I have to keep a fixated stare on the point of cutting, at times the line, the shadow, and the blade all become "one" in a fluid dance.

Guiding the wood through the cuts is a little like driving a boat. There's a different kind of resistance, or lack thereof, when making a turn in a boat than in a car. Unlike the needle in a sewing machine, a scroll saw blade can flex, resulting in a dynamic flow of movements and an exercise in cooperation. In many ways, I have to become "one" with the blade and the wood to make a clean cut.

New Lighting for Tutorial Photos

Since the step-by-step tutorial of my current project will be featured in a magazine this fall, I finally bit the bullet and bought some professional lighting for the photographs. The guest room has now become Studio A, as you can see below.



The little Canon PowerShot I have is great, but the lighting makes all the difference in showing the true details of the work. I'm looking forward to using this lighting for a new video project early this spring too. I'll be recording a lecture on How Thoughts Become Reality based on topics covered in my book The Sage Age - Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom.

Featured Magazine Carving

Happy news! I just started a new carving that will be featured in the Fall edition of a Fox Chapel magazine. They are the publishers of both Woodcarving Illustrated and Scrollsaw Woodcarving & Crafts.

My carvings have been previously featured in both magazines, and now they've asked me to do a full tutorial on the special techniques I use to get three layers of depth in a blank that is only one quarter inch thick.

I'm honored and delighted to have the opportunity to share the how-to with more folks. Tutorials from previous carvings can be found on this blog, but they don't show the secret technique for creating the depth. You'll have to wait for the magazine for that.

Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog to be notified when the magazine comes out and to get other tricks and tips for my carvings.

Top Pick for Holiday Gifts

I'm very excited to tell you that Heartwood Art carvings got Top Pick in Holiday Gifts That Don't Suck list on Examiner.com!

The author of the column, Judith Yates, also runs the Bohemian Nashville! MeetUp group, which includes a diverse membership of performing and visual artists. It's a great way to meet other artists in the 'hood and they also host/list upcoming shows in which members participate.

Invitation for Full Feature Tutorial

I've just received an invitation to do a full-featured spread for Fox Chapel Publishing, which produces Woodcarving Illustrated and Scrollsaw, Woodcarving & Crafts magazines. The feature will be a 3-5 page tutorial on carving trees, much like the tutorials you've seen posted on this blog.

I've also been invited to be posted in a tutorial segment of the premier Russian carving magazine. I'll post links for that when they become available.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog's RSS feed for updates.

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - It's Finished

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.



The carving is complete and mounted in a custom frame that was provided by Connie Weaver, owner of S & S Framing. The deep colors of the frame nicely offset the light honey-tone of the wood.

I hope you have enjoyed this Follow My Carving series. Feel free to contact me directly with your comments or post them here on the blog. You can see a full animation of close-ups by visiting the 2009 Gallery. The carving is now available for sale.

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 23

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

The final lacquer finish has been applied and the carving is ready to frame. There are two important measurements you’ll want to take on your frame before you even begin the carving. They are pictured below.












You’ll need to know the width of the inside of the frame so you can give your pattern enough blank space before the carving begins. In other words, you wouldn’t want part of your carving to be behind that part of the frame.

You’ll also need measure the depth of the frame and make arrangements to fill in any gap behind the carving. The next installment will show methods for filling this gap and ways to secure the carving in the frame.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 22

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

With just the first coat of oil the leaf patterns in the corners are already beginning to standout. The oil will pool a little in the carved lines and darken compared to the sanded flat wood around them. This gives distinction to the lines.



At least three more coats of Danish oil will be needed before applying the final sealant finish.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 21

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

The bark carving is finished and the final cleanup of the carving is done. It’s time to start the oiling process. I’ve made a square frame that will allow me to oil both sides of the carving at the same time and allow it to air dry on both sides. The first step is to place staples in the sides. This stapler has a wire guide setting that leaves a gap instead of inserting the staple flush. The carving must be laid flat and a little downward pressure applied while the staple is being inserted. Don’t try to do this with the carving standing on end or it may crack.



Small wires are inserted through the staples. The carving is placed in the square frame and the wires are wound around screws on each side.



I usually start by oiling the backside first. Be sure to oil the outer edges. I use Danish oil because it gives a nice honey brown glow to the wood and does not leach out over time like boiled linseed oil can do. I used to apply the oil with an artist’s brush suitable for oil painting, but have since found that a standard acid brush used to apply flux for welding and such works just as well and is far cheaper. The oil is applied in thin coats. The first one is absorbed rather quickly. If I apply it in the morning I can usually apply a second coat by early evening. It usually takes about four coats in all.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 20

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.


Bark carving is fairly easy, but takes a lot of patience and a soft touch, especially on the smaller branches. A consistent direction must be maintained to give a realistic look. I generally start at the base of the trunk, where it meets the roots, and carve straight up, turning the direction gradually when I come to a limb.

It’s necessary to make some of the strokes go a bit beyond the edge, but great care must be taken to protect the tool in this process. The edge of a micro-carving gouge is somewhat fragile. I always carve with a piece of soft wood under the carving. A plywood blank made of birch serves well for this purpose. If one of those stabbing strokes pierces the blank, little damage will be done to the top of the gouge.

I usually put downward pressure on branches when I’m nearing the end of them. This gives extra support and keeps the thin wood from breaking when I make an angled stroke. Care must be taken not to stab the thumb that’s applying the pressure. Whittling thumb guards can help, but I keep a box of bandages on hand, just in case. I’ve rarely done a carving that did not requires some sort of blood sacrifice, tiny as they may be.

Before I started the bark carving, I created a few knot holes. I didn’t make them as pronounced on this carving as usual because it is already very busy with all the twists and turns of the limbs. Elbows where the branch takes a turn of direction are great places for knotholes. I simply left the area high when giving it the original shape and then used a round ball bit on a rotary tool to make the hole. It’s just a little deeper than the bark carving and will cast enough of a shadow to distinguish it as a hole.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 19

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

Now that the circle around the tree is finished, it’s time to start on the leaves that adorn the corners. The same technique used on the circle outline works well here too. Since the lines can be a little tricky to see, I go over them lightly with a pencil first. Then I make a shallow incision with a carving knife all the way around and then another pass to deepen the cut. Next, I use a veiner tool (micro V gouge), to deepen and widen the cut slightly. This is the rough cut.

Since I need the lines to be more deep than wide, I use a rotary tool with a very narrow, pointed bit to deepen the lines smoothly. Running it at it’s slowest speed and holding it at a very shallow angle seems to work best for me.

After I deepen the lines a bit, I use an orbital sander with a triangular shaped face to lightly sand the entire surface outside the circle around the tree. Using this type of sander gives me good control and I can stay with the grain and get right up to the edge of the circle.

Once the sanding is finished, I go back over the leaf lines with the rotary tool to further deepen the lines and to clean up any edges. The final leaf looks like the picture to the right. It’s important to keep in mind that once a section of wood has been sanded, it’s not a good idea to go back over it with a carving gouge. Sandpaper debris and the finely honed edges of metal gouges don’t get along too well.

The leaf pattern is very versatile and can be slightly modified so that it can be scrolled, chip carved, or burned into the wood.

After all four leaves are finished, I go over the entire carving, front and back, to ensure every edge is clean with no burrs, loose chips or fuzzy edges. This is especially important in areas where branches meet.

The last step in the carving process is the bark, and that will be in the next installment.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 18

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.



To make the decorative carving for the circle, I start with a few straight, shallow cuts (on the right). All cuts are made toward the center of the circle. I then begin to make angled cuts (on the left). The depth and angle of these cuts are varied to break up any pattern. I simply want to texture the circle to give the tree an interior frame. The result is below.



If you are a chip carver, you could make an interesting pattern in the circle. It’s important, though, to make the border simple. You don’t want it to distract from the main focal point, which is the tree.

I’ll start carving the leaves that decorate the outer corner in the next installment.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 17

Now that the limbs are shaped, I move to the outside carvings. I’m going to add a decorative carving to the circle around the tree and, in doing so, I may knick one of the branches. If I do, the bark carving will easily hide it.



I used a carving knife to make a very shallow outline of the circle before I removed the pattern. I went back over the outline with the knife several more times, deepening the cut as I went. You can see that line toward the top of the picture. Next, I used a micro-veining gouge, which is a super tiny V shaped gouge, to deepen and widen the line a bit. You can see the beginning of that near the bottom of the picture.

The micro-viener is perfect for this job because I don’t actually want to go too deep with the cut. Relief carving is all about illusion of depth. I simply want to make the line deep and wide enough to cast a nice shadow. The outline will also act as a stop cut when I begin to apply the decorative carving.

The next installment will show the decorative carving.

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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 16

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

If you carve enough trees, sooner or later you're bound to come across a weak part of the wood and either break a branch or remove it on purpose. This is one of the reasons it's important to modify the design to coordinate with the actual blank you will be using. Sometimes, though, you just won't know until you begin carving. The wood around this branch was weak, so I chose to remove it. I'll simply shape it so it looks like a natural break of a limb.

If you'll look through the gallery, you'll see that I choose to incorporate broken limbs into some of the original designs. These are small branches that were never meant to attach to anything other part of the carving. If you choose to do this, design it bigger than you intend for it end up. Because it is only supported on one side, it will likely break near the tip end. So, just plan to make it shorter as you carve.

One other thing to keep in mind is that as you carve and make the limbs and branches smaller, the entire structure becomes weaker and it will begin to bow. You may have to hold some of the limbs flat or give them a little support on the opposite side of your carving stroke. If a unintended limb does break, you'll have to decide how to incorporate it into the carving. It's not very hard to do. As the famous Italian sculpture, Michaelangelo might have said, "Fuhgeddaboudit."



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

Follow My Carving - Gnarly Tree - Step 15

To celebrate Heartwood Art carvings being featured in upcoming issue of Woodcarving Illustrated the "Follow My Carving" series was created to give you a an insider’s view on how the art is made.

There's a bit of trick to making the branches stand out from the limbs. A very shallow angle is used to make short, stabbing cuts just at the line where the two meet.

A great deal of care is needed not to cut into the branch and not to stab too hard. I always use a piece of soft wood underneath my carving. That way, if the stabbing stroke does go through, the tips and edges of my gouge will not be damaged. A fine cutting edge is very thin, and therefore, somewhat fragile.

Several short strokes are needed to deepen the cut.

The final result looks like this. The edges are cut much deeper next to the branch and tapered out along the edge to blend in with the rest of the branch.
The second part of the trick is to cut the lower part of the limb at an angle. This gives it the illusion of falling away and underneath the branch.



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