Relief Carving Wood Spirit Grape Man WIP

[Irish]

Someone asked about how to carve noses ... Now it's a little hard to do just a nose ... so I think I will do the whole face. I decided on a pattern from the Woodspirits and Greenman book that Chris, Shawn and I worked on.

This pattern has been elongated to fit a 8" wide by 14" long by 1" thick basswood board. I am going to try to include ALL the steps ... if I miss something I am sure that someone will be kind enough to let me know.

This is what I would consider a beginner's level project ... if I get too simplistic, sorry!


Step 1: I'm using an 8" x 14" x 1" rough cut board of basswood. I always start by giving the wood on all four sides a good sanding.

Step 2: I've sized the pattern to fit my board and used rubber bands to hold it into place. There are two sheets of carbon paper underneath. One sheet was not quite large enough to cover the entire board. Trace using an ink pen.

Step 3: Check a corner of the tracing before you remove all the rubber bands. I have only traced the main outlines of each area. Since much of the wood will be rough out cut there is no point in tracing all the details at this point.

This free online tutorial is brought to you by ArtDesignsStudio.com

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 4: I have marked with a pencil where I want to drill holes for the band saw work.

Step 5: I have a scrap board under my basswood to protect the work bench. Both boards are locked into place with the dog leg clamps. I put a 1/2" bit into my largest drill and drilled out the holes marked in step 4.

Step 6: Sand everything again well to remove any chips or splinters caused by the drill. Those chips can catch while doing the band saw work so don't forget to sand the back as well.

Step 7: Please, use common sense and good safety when working with the band saw ... including ...use eye protection, make use there is nothing under your feet like a coil of extension cord, check the condition of the blade and it's tension before you begin, and of course, keep your fingers well away from both the blade and from the direction of the cut. I start a band saw project by getting rid of the excess wood along the edges.

Step 7: Notice on the stem area of the pattern that I have made a change in the design so that the stem is open. This will let me cut the stem on the band saw instead of needing to go to the scroll saw for that area.

(OK ... this is about where I discovered the snake skin inside my band saw .... Oh and about where I discovered I had thrown all my scrap wood away ... sigh!)

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 8: I like to make all the cuts into the angles or corners in one direction first. Then come back and do the second side of the angle in a second cut. I have made pencil marks where I am going to open up the leave overlaps ... again, this is so that I won't have to go to the scroll saw.

Step 9: Shows the two cuts to the angles. Notice my hands are so well out of the way that you can't see them in the photo.

Step 10: There were a few places that I needed to walk the band saw into an inner angle. This means that you make a cut, back up a little then make another cut right next to the first. By walking the saw you can thin slice out the angle then continue in your long cuts.

Step 11: The band saw work is done and I gave the wood, both sides a second sanding. You can see that I do not 'fuss' over staying exactly on the tracing line. A smooth curve to the cut is more important to me than following the tracing exactly.

Step 12: Tool list from your left to your right
small v-gouge
u-gouge also called a veining gouge
small round gouge
square chisel
skew chisel
large round gouge
bull nose chisel
wide sweep gouge
large chip knife (bench knife)
sharpening tools

I am using tools manufactured by Ramelson. Mostly they are from the large set but the small v-gouge and u-gouge are from the detailing set. A bull nose chisel is a square chisel that has had it's sharp corner edges rounded ... it's perfect for smoothing the deep backgrounds in a relief carving. This is a simple carving so use the tools you already have! Many times a tool can be used in place of what you see being used in an article or book.

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 13: Use a pencil to mark your levels with 1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest. I may not use every one of those five levels but what I am doing is determining where each area is in relation to the other areas surrounding it. The ball tip of the nose is the highest point, number 1, on the face. From that ball tip the nose tapers down into the face to the brow ridge. The brow ridge is above the cheeks and eyes so it becomes number 2 on the forehead side of the eyes. The eye lids under the brow ridge are high at the brow ridge and then fall down into the eye. The eyes are the deepest points of the face. The cheeks lie about as high as the brow ridge area.

I am working the mustache and beard area as units, not individual hairs. This will make it much easier to rough out. The edges of the leave will be the deepest area of the carving.

Step 14: Using a chip knife as a bench knife I am making a stop cut along the outer edges of the nose.

Step 15: Drop the knife to an angle away from the nose with the tip of the knife cutting into the depth of the first cut. This will pop out a v-wedge chip. This widens the stop cut for when I will use the round gouge to being roughing out the cheek areas.


Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 16: I am using my large round gouge to begin hogging out the eyes, cheeks and along the beard area. I work the gouge from the outer side of his face into the stop cut along his nose.

Step 17 - 19: Along each of the tight angles made by the mustache hairs I have cut a small chip cut. This is a three step cut. Cut along one side of the angle angling the knife towards the center area of the v. The second cut goes along the other side, it also angles in to the center. The third cut is made by putting your knife low on the wood and slicing into the other two. This will remove a small neat triangle of wood. Chip cut all along the beard and mustache angles.

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 20: Cut a wide stop cut along the remaining beard lines. This is done exactly as we cut along the outer edge of the nose in steps 14 and 15.

Step 21: Begin dropping the areas outside the beard with the round gouge. I am working about 1/4" deep at this point. I am using the chip knife/bench knife to clean up the excess left by the round gouge.

Step 22: As I am going to drop the leave areas next and rough them out. So along the edge of the board I want to mark where my deepest cuts will stop. This is about 1/3 of the thickness of the wood. I have sent a compass to the correct length and let the point leg of the compass drop over the back of the board. As I pull the compass that leg will keep the pencil point exactly the right length on the edge of the wood, marking a line for me.

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 23: I am going to use my wide sweep round gouge to hog down the leave areas of the oak man. I am working from the ridge left by cutting down the beard areas towards the outer edge of the leaf. I'll use that compass line on the sides to keep check that I don't cut too deep.

Last image, Step 23 - Close up. This is going to take a while and it has started raining again (7+ inches in the last two days) so I'll post once I get this done.

Susan

[Tidewalker]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

I thank YOU for the simplistic, it's what us simple folk need so we can learn to carve like you edjekated folk do. Really Thanks so much. I asked today or yesterday about mouth and noses and POOF .... I wish everything was this easy. It is people like you, that give to this hobby, that make it so enjoyable for us newbies thanks again.. oh did I say Thanks? hehe WOW this is exactly what we newbies need! I wish all carving books for newbies would be written this way. You are so kind to be doing all this work for us. Again Thanks

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Hey Tidewalker ... Thank you for the nice words. I, too, love the craft of wood carving. It seems to be one of the most open hobbies about sharing ideas, techniques and WIPs. And I have tried about a kallion crafts and arts ... wood carving is where I feel I truely found a great home.

We have spent the entire evening, since about 10 minutes from posting this, without power due to the massive amounts of rain our area is getting. So, I didn't get anything carved this evening. If I can I'll start again tomorrow morning.

Susan

[MelNM]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Hi Susan, this great, I started doing the cat and got flustered, now that you gave me a better idea on how to carve it, I'm going to attack it with the bandsaw. Talk about rain, we just got the biggest storm of the year, about a quarter of an inch if it rained 7 inches here the city would wash away.

Great tutorial from a great instructor by the way.
Thanks
Mel

[Mark N. Akers]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Great project Susan,is this in your packet of patterns?

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

...l]

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 24: Just wanted to show you guys that we "pros" have messy areas and stages during our carvings
too!

Step 25: I have used both my large round gouge and wide sweep gouge to drop the three lower leave lobes
into position. Now I am going back over those areas with my wide sweep to just clean up some of the rough
ridges left by the hogging out work.

Step 26: I have taken some areas of the leave down the the compass mark, other areas have been left
high. This will help to make the leave area roll later in the carving.

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 27: For relief carving I love using a depth gauge. This is a small ruler with a sliding T. The T
can be set at the depth of the wood thickness, in this case 1". Then I can move the depth gauge to any
area of my work and check how deep I have gone and how deep I can still go. You can get a depth gauge at
most good wood working store. Sewing stores also sell something similar, it's a hem gauge!

Step 28: Now that my depth gauge is set to the thickness of the wood I can lay a ruler, or any other
flat object, across two areas of un-carved wood. Here that's the nose area and the edge of the lowest
leave lobe. When I place the gauge into the carved areas I can mark with where it touches the edge of
the ruler and know how deep I am.

Susan

[Irish]

Re: Oak Man Relief WIP

Step 29: Don't have a depth gauge, it's easy to make one out of a note card or piece of a cereal box. I
have a note card and have placed it on the table next to my wood. I can mark the wood thickness with a
pencil.

Step 30: Cut the corner out of the note card at the thickness pencil mark.

Step 31: Cut the remaining edge to a tapered point that can fit into the different tight areas of your
carving.

Step 32: You can use your ruler to mark a line at the top of the notch. This is a quick visual reference for how deep or thick the original wood is.

Susan