2 Other Carvers Galleries - New Contributions!
I am very pleased to be able to bring you 3 wonderful contributions to the Other Carvers galleries.
For those of you who don't know, and as the name of the gallery implies, this is a growing collection of good quality work by woodcarvers other than myself.
You can see the full collection here.
There are 9 pieces, all varied and all with the carvers sharing both stage pictures and notes of the carving itself, and the work as it progressed.
 Sarah Rowe: 4 Corinthian Capitals
 Jim Henri: Bellamy Eagle
 Roger Strautman: The Shroud (for sale)
I hope that you will inspired and encouraged by what you see.
One of the things that struck me about these 3 carvings is the total lack of similarity between them, a fact which points to the wonderfully broad scope of woodcarving: there is the absolute precision of lettering and chip carving in The Shroud; the large simple statement of the Bellamy Eagle; the precise logistics in carving and assembling the 4 Corinthian Capitals; gilding, bleaching, veneering; huge and small scale... And this still doesn't make a dent in what is possible with a chisel and a piece of wood.
As you know, there is an 'educational' element to my website: it's not just about my own work but wanting to share my love of carving and giving back some of the riches and joy that I have received over the years through my involvement with this ancient craft.
I hope that you will inspired and encouraged by what you see in the Other Galleries. In particular the stage pictures are fascinating. These often don't do justice to what took place because the carver is too busy working to take loads of pictures but with digital cameras they can readily take a few, enough too give a fascinating insight into how carver approach their projects. When you see the process it usually looks quite sensible and not at all esoteric.
I do know, however, that some carvers find such big pieces of carving intimidating.
So let me say something about that:
2 Carve a Leaf, Carve a Forest...
When you see a really involved piece of carving such as these in the Other Carvers Galleries, you must realise that this sort of big carving work will involve a large degree of repetition.
Think of a violinist playing a tune. Obviously, there are only so many notes on a violin, regardless of the key, and only so many combinations and the violinist will keep playing the same note, in a different place but none-the-less the same note - a repetition. And within any given piece of music there will be huge numbers of these same notes, played in the same way. Indeed, we expect this, it's part of the overall structure of music. We need only learn the tune to one verse and one refrain to know the melody of a whole song.
Similarly the millions of words in the books, papers and magazines that we read are repetitions of only a few thousand, and these are made up of only 26 letters.
I may be simplifying a little here to make the point but most woodcarving, including very large and complicated pieces, are also composed of, are build from, repeated elements.
So take, for example, the lettering in The Shroud: the same letter appears many times. Once that letter can be successfully carved, it can be used hundreds of times. Or the 4 Corinthian Capitals: each has 4 corners, and each of these has repeating units within it. The Bellamy Eagle has a huge number of feathers, all as similar as the carver can make them...
So the carvers are building up their work from successfully carved units. What you see is the handling of these units into the overall design.
Again, I am simplifying and repetition isn't the whole story by any means, but is a vital part of woodcarving and understand this is to imagine that you can take on large projects.
You also see the vision to see the design, the courage to take it on, and the tenacity to see it through - attributes you find in every good carver and which separates them from every other carver.
At the root though is this realisation that if you can carve one element of your design, you can repeat this where you like and you can carve a hundred. What you have to do is place these elements in a meaningful way - in other words make them subservient to your design. And it goes without saying that you have to be able to carve each element well, which means practice.
So, say you can carve a couple of decent mackerel in a small relief, working out how one fish overlaps the other. You could, with a touch of vision, courage and persistence, carve hundreds of mackerel, swirling across a huge pane that covers your living room wall...
You could!
If you can carve one leaf, you can carve a forest.
Do bear this in mind and don't be ovewhelmed or intimidated by the scale of big woodcarvings.
Look for the repetitions. You'll find it even in small carvings. Study the designs. Admire the willpower that makes these carvings happen. Enjoy and think how you can take the elements that you can successfully carve and build them up into something much bigger and grander.
And when you have carved your school of fish, or your forest, send it to me for consideration in the Other Carvers Galleries.
Full list of other carvers work in the gallery here
That's it!
Please forward this newsletter to a woodcarving friend, and anyone else you think might be interested. Thanks!
Joy and success with your carving.
Chris Pye
PS: One for the Bench:
"On the view of earth from 3.7 billion miles away:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.
On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam [...]
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
Carl Sagan ~ "Pale Blue Dot"
3 Miscellaneous & Useful Website Links
BACK ISSUES of this newsletter:
http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/intro/pastnews.html
including zipfiles for 2001 - 2005 text-style newsletters
TUITION/TEACHING 2006-7
UK (1-TO-1 PERSONAL TUITION)
The best way to learn or improve your carving is to join me in my studio for intensive, custom tuition, tailored to exactly what you need. Easy to arrange; dates to suit.
Full details here:
http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/tuition/t_custom.html
USA 2007 (Center For Furniture Craftsmanship, Maine)
| June 18 - 22 |
Wood Sculpture |
| June 25 - 29 |
Relief Carving |
| July 2 - 6 |
Intermediate/Advanced Carving
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Details on the CFC website: http://www.woodschool.org
CANADA 2007
I will not be teaching at the Rosewood Studio in Almonte, Canada in 2007
SLIPSTONES WOODCARVING MANUALS
Help yourself!
You are free to copy any or all of these ebooks, send them to your carving friends, or have them available on your own website but you must not charge money for them.
Full list and details here:
http://www.chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/index.html
 Master Woodcarving Secrets (pdf)
(Sponsored by Tools for Working Wood)
Quick Carving Questions - 1
(Sponsored by Tools for Working Wood)
Quick Carving Questions - 2
(Sponsored by Classic Hand Tools http://www.classichandtools.com/)
Quick Carving Questions - 3
(Sponsored by Preferred Edge Carving Knives & Supplies)
Quick Carving Questions - 4
Selecting & Sharpening Your V Tool
Learning to Carve
Learning to Carve 2
A Guide to Safe Woodcarving
Mistakes and Woodcarving
Fundamentals of Woodcarving
Slicing, And The Value Of The Inside Bevel (pdf)
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