Walters Carving

Working on the details and finish.  Tomorrow I'm milling the wood for the base which will be out of walnut.  This is the home stretch.  The carving has 11 pieces of bark glued up.  The well had posts, but they broke off too easily while trying to finish other aspects.  I may go back and add them in once i've got everything else done, but chances are I'll just do another carving with a well and maybe just one tree - less to get in the way as you're manipulating the carving.

In my last post I showed a tree that I had power carved.  Since then I've gone a little crazy and started a forest.  I didn't plan on them leaning in the same direction, but the lean is useful as you can position them leaning in different directions around a carving of a house/cabin.  So what am I going to do with this forest?  I started thinking, and then I started carving .... I started a cabin .... and then a well which I'll detail below how I created... The well was created in about an hour with power.  I'm fairly sure that I could crank these out a lot faster now that I've worked through the process.  The tools I used are in the below picture.  A simple diamond taper, two carbide flames, one at 1/8 and one at 1/4, a diamond cutter, and a detail sander.  I also used some Scotch Brite (not shown).  I'll detail the steps below the picture of the burrs. Start with a piece of cottonwood bark that i...

I haven't been carving seriously for awhile.  I got distracted with a couple of projects that just as important.  One included more hand tool storage in the shop.  Another is an intarsia project for my wife that I may post here ... maybe. The latest issue of Woodcarving Illustrated showed up in my mailbox today.  In it was an article by Rick Jensen where he detailed how to power carve a tree and then add it to a house.  Having seen the very carving in his article up close at the seminar I took of his, I was eager to get started.  Here's the results thus far.  I haven't started the house yet, and while I like this as a first try, it's not finished and I may try a couple more before settling on one to add to a house.

 Here is the latest in in-the-round carvings.  I blew out the door but was able to repair it with a piece that was glued in.  It gave me the chance to experiment with a split  Dutch door.  My wife pointed out that I probably should've just left the top open and the bottom closed...but I didn't.

Here is the finished house.  I had started this over lunch time during Rick's seminar.  I learned a few things about making the shingles more interesting by carving them out one by one and not doing row after row which leads to too uniform a look.  As well he gave me some advice on creating ladders, which I think came out fairly well in this case.  I had this thought to do another home similar to this one, leaning in the other direction and mount them on a base together and call the whole thing "Reluctant Neighbors."  I'll have to see if I get around to that or not.

The carving mounted and finished.

The final day has come and gone, and way too quickly I might add.  Its been exhausting but in a great way.  Meeting other carvers, seeing their work, sharing technique, experiences and talking about artists that are inspirations to each of us...just an awesome experience. I managed to put in a lot of detail today.  Rick showed some interesting techniques and tools that made the experience more rewarding.  The following picture shows the texture of the mushroom stem made a little more realistic to what a wild growing mushroom might look like simply by using an embossing tool to texture the bark. The following two photos show more texturing.  The one on the left-hand side shows the underside of the mushroom top, simply textured with gouges/veiners OR with power which is how I chose to do it.  The second picture shows a post, carved in place (not an added on piece of wood) and the texture of the bark, plus a knot.  After seeing how Rick "a...

Today was another long day.  It included a lot of different steps.  First there was laying out the windows and any doors.  Later on after glue up (more on this later) we had to set in the doors and windows  which is essentially exposing the frame and making sure there's enough room between other details on the house to get a gouge in since.  Exposing the frame is done by taking away the background which is why you need that room.  Then there was overall shaping: shaping of the mushroom base so that it as more realistic (and fit on the base), plus  the shaping the roof. After laying out the windows, Rick gave his final thumbs up on each design (i.e. we won't get into trouble during the "setting" phase) and we split the bark pieces apart.  The next two pictures show the front and back.  You can see that if its split apart correctly the cardboard is what splits.  This is later taken off with a Jointer before the final glue-up.  The n...

Day 1 of a 3 day seminar with Rick Jensen (http://www.rickjensenwoodcarving.com/) complete, and I'm exhausted.  Twelve students from all over, started with something like this.... This is two pieces of cottonwood bark laminated together with a piece of thin cardboard down the center.  Rick's method is unique in that most cottonwood bark carvings have an "ugly" side that you position against the wall.  That "ugly" side is the side of the bark where it was attached to the tree.  You could still do a 3D carving, but a full 360 degree "in-the-round" carving wasn't very practical (i.e. you'd waste a lot of wood and hollowing it out to allow light through...ugh).  Later in the process, after roughing out the basic shape with both hand and power tools, you'll see that we'll be splitting it in half in order to hollow the backsides such that when we add doors and windows light can shine through the carving making it more realistic.  Her...