First Carving (Part One)

To get started I'm not going to get into the safety aspects of wood carving, except to say that I still have all my fingers and that some of my techniques might be considered dangerous, so be carefull. This first picture is the completed carving. I am going to show you how it was made from start to finish.







It started with this raw knot which was gathered above 5000 ft elevation in the forest. I will discuss collecting these in a later post. After it is smoothed out on the back side it is attached to the table with plumbers tape and screws. It must be held tight so it can not move.

I need to determine the amount of working space I have for the face, hair and beard, so I start by cutting a basic outline, shown in the next picture.

Here I made my first few cuts to take a look at the condition of the resin underneight, making sure I have left plenty of room for the hair. I have also made sure to have carved deep enough to get past any of the old exposed surface wood.

Next, I need to do the same with the hair area, which is shown in the next photo.





In the picture to the right, I have continued to cutt through the surface area of the hair to get to the clean resin underneath. I have also cut deeper in the facial area trying to maintain the basic shape I started with.









At this point yo are ready to start laying out the basic charactoristics of the face. You may wish to use a template, or first lay it out in pencil, but after several hundred carvings you will find your best creativity will come from just doing it...in this carving I am starting with the eyes and working down the face...Some carvers start with the nose. After you do a few you will find it best to try many different techniques.






Here I have cut deeper in the nose bridge area and clipped the nostrils in an upward V shape and cut a basic mustache and mouth. So far I have used only one tool, a large die grinder with a large router bit. The face is still very rough. In the next Part I will show how to bring out the details and make the face more realistic. If you get a chance you can see or purchase some of my knothead carvings at my E-bay Store and Auctions at http://stores.ebay.com/Feather-River-Krafts-and-Carvings_W0QQsspagenameZMEQ3aFQ3aSTQQtZkm http://stores.ebay.com/Feather-River-Krafts-and-Carvings WoQQsspagenameZMEQ3aFQ3aSTQQtZkm