The Old Woman in the Shoe - Final

The carving is done!  Some of the ideas mentioned previously in another blog post were not accomplished mostly because ... well ... things change.  As I started adding detail I didn't want to make it too busy.

The carving is 8 separate pieces of Bass wood glued together except the ladder which is not glued.  Each piece is carved separately and then fit together.  I used a small trim router to get the top house part to fit into the shoe top, and then again to fit the roof to the top.  The chimney is turned on a lathe.

The Bass wood is sealed and then it is finished in acrylics, shoe cream, and finally sprayed with a spar urethane.  To get a sort-of antiqued finish I paint everything in multiple layers of acrylics, and then using a rotary tool with a scotch-brite sanding wheel i expose different layers of paint, and in some cases go all the way to the wood.  I also like to highlight certain areas where hand carving tools are used.

This photo shows some of the stitching.  I created that with a stitch ponce, and then highlighted with Meltonian shoe cream.  You have to be careful that the paint isn't overrun with the shoe cream however, it does help to create a nice patina as well as highlighting details.

 

There are 7 pieces of Bass wood in this carving.

The shoe laces are leather.