Years ago, my woodworking professor told me that once you understand wood and chisels, carving is straightforward—it’s just drawing done with blades.
This sunflower carving from last year was a good exercise in seeing the similarities between carving and drawing, especially when it comes to depth. Just like shadows are the first and maybe most important part of a drawing, most of the work here was in getting everything to the right depth. Once I hit that point, the work flew, because all I had to do was 'fill in' what was missing from my silhouettes.
Here are what my steps look like for a typical carving:
Step 1:
After the initial drawing, I make a carving 'blueprint' to figure out the depths of each section of the carving--the different colours are for the foreground, midground, etc. I even mark out my depths along each edge.This way, I know how deep every single petal or leaf should be.
Step 2:
Lower my foreground. My customer wanted a raised border, so the whole carving is inset by about 1/16th". I use a v-chisel to make these reference lines, so that I can work to their depth as I clear out the material.
Step 3:
Smooth out the background and trace/apply my drawing! I've marked each petal with a number corresponding to a colour in my blueprint--1st layer of depth, 2nd layer, 3rd layer, etc.
Step 4:
"Bosting out" is one of my favourite steps, partly because of its name. It means removing the bulk of the background. I also use a U-gouge to clear a groove about 1/8 of an inch outside of my lines, so that when I cut my actual outline I get a nice clean line.
Step 5:
After clearing the material right up to my outline, I use my U-gouge to trace the outlines of all my level 1 objects. This is important--I'm not outlining all the objects, I'm just outlining around the foreground so that I can start to lower the rest of the piece to the midground.
Step 6:
I start lowering everything that's not on level 1. I may have to redraw some of my markings later, but that's okay: I'm only focusing on depth right now. This is part of getting the image to look dynamic and 3D.
Step 7:
I continue to lower the 3rd and 4th levels as well! Now that those are done, I can start thinking about the overall curves and planes of the petals and leaves. The topography of the carving is mostly established at this point.
Step 8:
At this point, everything seems to speed up. I've already done most of the 'thinking' for this project, so now I can follow my gut and just try to bring the carving to life.
Step 9:
Step 10:
Admire! When I finish a piece I like to carry it into differently-lit spots and look at the highlights and shadows. I especially like the drama of all the different planes and depths in the petals.
Thank you for following along!
-Meraj
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