---- Chris Pye: WOODCARVING - NEWSLETTER ---- May 2005 http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com "Dedicated to the teaching, learning and love of woodcarving" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is an opt-in newsletter and you should only be receiving it because you requested it from the website, or were sent it by a friend. Subscribe or Unsubscribe easily on the home page here: http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/ or using the link at the end of the newsletter. ****Back issues here: http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/intro/pastnews.html including zipfiles for 2001, 2002 & 2003, 2004 newsletters ============================================================ Hello Everyone! Please forward this newsletter to a woodcarving friend, and anyone else you think might be interested. Thanks! CONTENTS: 1. Quick Carving Questions Organising Tools on the Bench? 2. New Series: Learning to Carve II 'Intelligent Practice' Website Bookmarks at the end. List of Slipstones Woodcarving Manuals Teaching Dates ________________________________________ QUICK CARVING QUESTIONS ________________________________________ **** QUESTION: ORGANISING TOOLS ON THE BENCH? **** "When I have a complicated carving, I have a lot of tools out on the bench. They get muddled and I'm forever looking for the one I need. Any suggestions?" **** ANSWER **** You need what I call 'bench discipline' - which is just a habitual way of working that helps you carve efficiently and without damaging your carving tools. Here are a few pointers from the way I work: 1. LINE YOUR TOOLS UP: For me, laying the tool down with the handle away seems to have more advantages: the cutting edges are safe from knocking into each other and you can see what sweeps you have immediately. 2. GET INTO THE HABIT OF PLACING YOUR TOOLS DOWN THIS WAY: I get students to just do it - despite resistance, which is useless - right from the start. In the end it's automatic. The point is: if this isn't your habit, you'll have to work at it. 3. HAVE A DEEP BENCH: My bench is deep enough so that, usually, there is room for a row of tools towards the front and another further back. The secret lies here! However, you just start with one row, at the front. 4. BRING TOOLS OUT AS YOU NEED THEM: I don't leave tools out, carving after carving. When I've finished a piece, I check the tools are all sharp and put them away ready for the next job. I clean up the bench and floor. Then I gird my loins and start again. Each carving is different and requires a different combination of tools and I bring these out as is I need them. In this way, the tools on the bench are ones being used - nothing starts off redundant. 5. START THE BACK ROW: After carving a while - getting tools out, using them, adding to the row, getting out more - the row will be 'full'. Even if it isn't, there will be some tools that I might not need any more. When I have a natural break I shunt these no longer, or little needed, tools to the (new) back row. The front row is now 'cleansed' and contains the tools I am immediately using. 6. SHUNT BETWEEN ROWS: As I work, I send tools to the back row or bring them forward to the front as I need them. So I'm right on top of my most immediately useful tools all the time and not hunting through ones I'm no longer needing. 7. THINK OF FAMILIES: If I have say 3 or 4 V tools of different sizes, I might lay these down towards the left of the bench. Or my spoon, or flat or smallest gouges to the right. The whole point is to speed up the flow of picking up and using tools and thus the whole carving process. 8. THINK INDIVIDUALS: All my tool handles are different and it really does help to distinguish them among a row. Some tools are my favourites - they are always out and seem to be used a lot. These I've made instantly recognizable. Some families of tools I've given team colours - like a blue band for the 9's. I believe there is a sort of 'demanifestation' phenomena: a tool disappears entirely. It's gone, absolutely vanished off the bench and into some interplanetary wormhole, only to reappear with an inaudible 'pop' when I'm not looking. This I can't do anything about, although I have thought of tying bits of string to each tool. (I also believe some parts of the floor near my bench can have a greater gravitational pull on some days. How else can I explain the way I keep dropping things some days?) However, putting this weird physics aside, I hope you can see this sort of simple discipline is effective in sorting out the tools you immediately need form the ones you don't It's largely habit as I say, and the point of this habit, like sharpening is to have the tools in your hand before you even started looking for them. ________________________________________________ 2. NEW SERIES: LEARNING TO CARVE II 'Intelligent Practice' ________________________________________________ I would guess that most of you have downloaded the free ebook 'Learning to Carve' (no? - link at the end of the newsletter). In it I talk about the basic things you need to think of to get yourself going. In this newsletter, I've occasionally touched on other, more non-physical issues that seem to me to be just as important in how ell or joyfully people carve. There is one above, for example - understanding the need for, and having a sense of, discipline, Or patience. Or cutting out time to practise. Well, I thought I'd do a 'Learning to Carve part 2' series of short articles, which would pick up on a few of my favourites - not in any particular order, more how they come to me - and could become another ebook when gathered together. Actually I've already started: the month before last I talked about 'showing up'. I'll call that number 1 eventually. But for now here's my first offering: INTELLIGENT PRACTICE. I think we all know about the need for practice, even if we don't do it. It goes like this: Woodcarving is a skill. Skills are learned by repeating something, over and over. Think driving the car. Therefore to learn to carve wood you must repeat what you do over and over... The two fast track ways to learning traditional woodcarving skills are carving letters and carving mouldings. Why? Because you must work precisely, mistakes are obvious, and you repeat finger, hand, arm and body movements over and over until they're second nature. Many people have no interest in these subjects as such, which is fine - I'm only giving these as examples to make my point. But what about that bit of magic -'talent', 'gift', 'grace' or whatever? Sure, we need this. But talent without practice is like a plant without water. Think how hard those super-talented musicians practice. I can almost hear you thinking: 'Oh no! He's banging on about practice again! That's alright for HIM but in my real world I just don't have that sort of time... (And him going on about it just makes me feel guilty, bad, 'inadequate'. And I'm going to stop reading here - actually no, I won't. He might have something else to say...)' - You do ramble on a bit. But thanks for staying with me. If you have set your mind on learning to carve well: to the best you can in your circumstance - then you are committing yourself to learning a skill. Yes? So practice IS necessary. Yes? WHAT YOU NEED TO BE CLEAR ABOUT IS JUST WHAT 'PRACTICE' CONSISTS OF, AND HOW YOU CAN ENGAGE IN IT. Because, by the logic, if you want to carve well, you have to engage with this 'practice'. Conversely, if you are not prepared to engage then you'll have to resign yourself to slower, perhaps frustrating progress in your chosen craft. You need to think about it. Think about what YOU could do to get the essential repetition that is practice, in a way that you hardly notice, and which might even be fun. This is why I'm calling it 'Intelligent Practice'. (Which implies a 'stupid' or 'dumb practice', doesn't it?) Is it necessary to bore yourself witless carving the same stupid little cut a million times? Will you know you've practised enough when you take a bite out of your bench top out of frustration? Or a fellow carver because you are doing something you hate and they seem to be having fun? Or is there another approach? I can still hear you muttering: 'He's going to tell me how! He's going to sort it out for me!' Er, actually I'm not. Why? Because everyone's circumstances, energy, passion and time are different. There really is no single solution. If there was a pill I'd be the first to retire... However I do think it does involve sitting down quietly and thinking about it. Not panicking, or feeling pressured or 'bad'. Just acknowledging that: * carving is a skill, * the essence of learning a skill is practice * the essence of practice is in repeating. Think about how a child learns, say, a recorder, or piano. Simple steps, ever more challenging while repeating what was learned before. Think about how you might break a complicated piece down. You want to try a head? Carve a few ears. A bird? Try some feathers. Think about how, if you only carve one of something, it contains all the learning curve (aka 'mistakes'). Consider carving a second, with the full joy of knowledge - and burning the first. Think what, if you were you're own personal carving trainer, knowing yourself as well as you do - what would you advise? Only you can do it for yourself: apply 'intelligence' to what seems a dull and dire subject. This assumes you're in earnest about carving. Which means you have something that I'll talk about next month... Passion! ================================================= That's all for this month! Joy and success in your carving! Chris Pye ------------------------- PS: One for the bench: "Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark." ~ Rabindranath Tagore ____________________________________________________________ SOME WEBSITE BOOKMARKS ____________________________________________________________ ----------------- SLIPSTONES WOODCARVING MANUALS Help yourself! Full list and details: http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/index.html * Quick Carving Questions - 1 http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/qcq1.html (Sponsored by Tools for Working Wood: http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/) * Quick Carving Questions - 2 http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/qcq2.html (Sponsored by Classic Hand Tools: http://www.classichandtools.com/) * Quick Carving Questions - 3 http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/qcq3.html (Sponsored by Preferred Edge Carving Knives & Supplies: http://www.preferrededge.ca/) * Quick Carving Questions - 4 http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/qcq4.html (Sponsored by The Japan Woodworker: http://www.japanwoodworker.com/) * The Accomplished V Tool 1 - Free evaluation copy http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/v1.html * Learning to Carve - Free eBook http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/learncarving.html * A Guide to Safe Woodcarving - Free eBook http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/safecarving.html * Mistakes and Woodcarving - Free eBook http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/mistakes.html * Fundamentals of Woodcarving - Free eBook http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/fundamentals.html *Slicing, And The Value Of The Inside Bevel With The Chris Pye #2 1/2 Finishing Gouges From Ashley Iles - Free pdf http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/slicing.html ----------------- TEACHING * UK (1-TO-1 PERSONAL TUITION) Full details here: http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/tuition/t_custom.html Single day: £150 3 days: £360 5 days: £495 Lunch included. Local B&Bs in a very beautiful part of England... * USA (CENTER FOR FURNITURE CRAFTSMANSHIP, MAINE) 2005 http://www.woodschool.org/ June 20 - 24 Ornamental Carving (Mouldings) June 27 - July 1 Relief Carving July 4 - July 8 Carving Tutorial * CANADA (ROSEWOOD STUDIO, ALMONTE, ONTARIO) 2005 http://www.rosewoodstudio.com Sep 12 - Sep 16 Relief Carving I (Beginners) Sep 19 - Sep 23 Relief Carving II (Advanced) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) Chris Pye 2005 Chris@chrispye-woodcarving.com ----------------------- -----------------------