Day 1: Wood Carving. Faces

Practice, practice, practice. (((Also, not sure what tags to go under? Suggestions?

Started out trying to do it just on my own. I measured out a ration from nose, to mouth, to lips, and tried to get the eyes and brow right. Results == Garbage essentially. :) Sad thing is that going in just with a knife and a piece of wood, the whittling and just pushing wood by layers quickly found was the wrong way to do things.

First Try: (Just guns blazing. Make it happen.)

• Balsa Wood
• Whittling essentially
• Started as a Bulldog became an Easter Island statue with a pointy beanie.

Then got ahold of a video, of how to make stop cuts, sweeps, etc.

Things clicked a little more and able to figure how to get the cuts for the nose and brow. Lips are still tough, but learning how to roll the blade helped immensely!
IMG_0941.JPG.

• Balsa Wood
• Some improvement.
• Understand that depth and shadows is what makes the features stand out.

The last quick try. This time on basswood which is a much, much better piece of wood. No cracking and splitting when using the blade to get details. Small and still kind of weak but can see how the cuts make the features. Little practice more confident that I can actually make a face.

Even though i'm not really wanting to do the folk artsy type of carving, I do think that there is allot to learn here. Especially the depth, and the rolling of the blade to get the rounded edges, etc. It's progress. I did except a little better honestly, but learning to walk before running.

Learned.

• Sweep Cuts vs Whittling and peeling off layers. My perception was that you whittled then you just smoothed.
• Stop cuts. Making the angles and depth by carving into a stop cut.
• Faces are carved in steps. By this Youtuber essentially 8 steps.
• Practicing the 8 steps on a length of Basswood till you feel more comfortable making the deep cuts to get the depth of the features, and the rounding to make the features connect.

Will need to get more basswood. Probably buy this book and follow the step by step. https://foxchapelpublishing.com/carving-the-human-face-second-edition-revised-expanded.html