This series of carvings were made for a club exhibition at Salford Art Gallery to show the progression of a carving

Stage 1 Plasticine Model

This is the first step in a stage by stage description of a carving process.     This is not the only way to carve; there are almost as many different ways as there are carvers, and I don’t always carve this way.

Carving wood is a long slow unforgiving activity.   Once the wood has been cut off it cannot be put back.     Plasticine can be modelled quickly, and material can be added easily.    It is a quick way to work out the problems of a carving and how the end result will look.

This plasticine model started life as an illustration of a carving of the head of a mace for a London Town Crier, a commission I did not get.    At that time it was a much tidier, cleaner  piece of work, but it has now suffered from use; from having measurements taken using steel dividers, from being amended to fit in with  the progress of the actual carving, and from falling over several times

Stage 2  Roughing Out

Roughing out is the first stage of carving and establishes the basic shape of the subject.      Many carvers use a band for this but I prefer old fashioned hand tools as I feel they give me more control and allow me to avoid any faults that may appear in the wood.   You will see knots in the wood that cause the wood to split and make getting a smooth surface difficult.

The lines on the wood are an attempt to see the final shape inside the wood that is left.    Henry Moore said that a sculpture should be interesting from each of the 360 points of a compass.   I extend this to say the sculpture should be right from each of those points too.     To get it right I need to line up front back, and sides

Stage 3   Before the  Last Stage

The shape of the work has been decided, and it has changed from a town crier with a mace into a watchman with a cudgel and a lamp.   I had thought I could get away with some thin sections round the hat and the bell but the wood was too weak, so the design was changed to more robust shapes.   There is a particularly nasty knot just where what would become the head of the mace or cudgel would have been that would make carving that rather difficult. 

There is upwards of 2 cm of wood to be removed all over the carving and the lines now show the centre of the body ( back and breast bone) and where the edges of  items of clothing meet

Stage 4    Almost Finished work

Final decisions have been made, the shape is correct, and it is all down to the finishing.     I have a personal dislike for glass paper and think a more interesting surface can be achieved with sharp tools.   Most carvers disagree.    I use knives, scalpels, chisels and gouges to give a variety of effects.

A Various chisels and gouges but most of the work was done with two gouges. B A carvers mallet with a round handle and head C An Engineers vice for holding the wood D Calipers to transfer measurements from the plasticine to the wood E An illustration of an ideal human figure used to get the proportions right The wood used is pine that was being thrown out during a church conversion.

Back to step-by-step projects