Little Figure started

Over the weekend I had a go at one of Jack Price's small characters. These are two inches high, and carved from a block about an inch square. First (slight) problem was that the pattern in Jack's book is taller than two inches! I suppose I should have measured it before cutting the wood. Hey ho. Anyway, it went pretty well, although I managed to chip off a part of his hat brim. I think he may end up bald, or at least with no hat. As you can see, he is still a work-in-progress.

Face Practice

I got a copy of Jack Price's Carving Small Characters the other day. I really like the naivety (and I mean this in a good way) of these and similar Scandinavian style carvings. The book is excellent, and takes the beginner through carving a small 2 inch high figure. Part of the process is to practice carving faces, and I decided to have a go at that first.

I carved a study stick as described in the book, and I was pretty happy with the result. I may have to get a smaller knife though, if I'm going to be carving many of these! The two pictures show the beginning and end stages - each stage has a little more detail added to it.

What to do.....

It looks like I might have some time on my hands, and not be able to do my main hobby of Archery. I was  looking for something else to fill the gap, and inspired by a visit to a local shop selling Wood Spirits carved in logs and the encouragement of my wife, I decided to take up wood carving.

After much trawling the web I chose a starter set of tools from Flexcut. These have served me very well so far. A trip to John Boddy's timber merchant resulted in some basswood, and I started by carving a couple of projects found on YouTube.

The first was an owl, chosen for it's simplicity and the excellent step-by-step tutorial. (Excuse the blurry pic, it was done on a phone)

The second was a wood spirit. Again this had a good step by step video, but there was a little less guidance than the owl project as there were no measurements and layout lines to mark. This proved to be a real confidence booster, and has made me want to do a load more of these.