Concept to Carving

Hill 382

A Chip Off the Old Block

Old Tools - Coming Soon

CONCEPT TO CARVING

So, "what kind if wood is that?" and "how did you do that?" Those are two more questions I get a lot. Generally my answers are, respectively, "it's TREE WOOD" and " it's a process." Normally the tree wood answer is accepted, but there are follow up questions on the "process" answer. My wife thinks the answer TREE WOOD is a little sarcastic, and maybe she is right. Actually a majority of my carvings are in bass wood. However on the web site you will also find butternut , mahogany, maple, walnut and cottonwood bark. The process question, or how you go from concept to carving takes a bit more explanation. So here goes.

The process to develop a carving starts with a thought or vision, the concept. There are many carving books in publication with great patterns which can be used. But over the years my pieces have also been based upon pictures in magazines, other sculptures, an 1863 photograph, and a sketch I made on the back of an envelope standing on a street in Banff, Canada. Inspiration comes from many different places.

Once an idea in your head, you have to find a suitable piece of TREE WOOD to create your vision. Sometimes this takes a few years. Once the wood is found the vision must be married to the medium. This means altering the picture, sketch, or pattern to fit the actual piece of wood to best utilize the useable dimensions and graining. This is really more of an art than a science for sure.

So, for this project I wanted to do a carving of a grizzly bear. I had already done such a piece, but now wanted to create a larger version. I obtained a piece of poplar wood at a saw mill in Andover, NJ. Behind the chunk of poplar in the foreground of the picture can be seen a piece of "glued up" maple from the same mill which eventually became one of the In Love As One eagle carvings in 2001.
I already had a workable pattern which had been used in 1998. After blowing up the pattern on a copy machine to fit the wood it was spray glued in place.
This piece of wood just barely fit the band saw in my basement shop. If the wood was a bit bigger I would have had to sub this cut out job to the shop at the American Wood Carving School in Wayne to do on their larger band saw.
Once the piece is band sawed out, which in this case is one dimension, the hard work is almost complete.
Now all I have to do is carve away everything that doesn't look like a grizzly bear. Just a little carving humor.

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Photography by Alan Rappaport | Site Design by Danielle Rappaport and Bernard Gingras Jr