Birds from the hedge

Here are some caricatures of bird life extracted from my Laurel hedge a few years ago. I got the idea from a book entitled "The Little Book of Whittling" by Chris Lubkemann, a real treasure trove of information about carving green wood with a knife, and several of his articles in Chip Chats magazine www.chipchats.org/.

  Wood: Cherry Laurel ( Prunus lauroceratus)      Height: Average 19 cms        Finish: nil

The choirmaster has lost a few feathers over the years from going around the shows but you will get the idea.

Choirmaster

Onion man

Here is a piece that I've had in the workshop for a couple of years in a blocked out form, and come the new year I resolved to finish before starting a new project. The design is mine derived from a photo in a pensioners magazine.

Wood: Lime (Tilia x europea)

Height: 12 cms

Finish: Linseed oil and Rennaissance wax

He reminds me of guys I have seen carting long strings of large white onions hanging from the handlebars of bicycles in France and Belgium, seen when I have been out doing geological fieldwork, with the odd good lunch of local bread, wine and salad thrown in. Happy days indeed.

The right eye is supposed to be winking. I have a trick or two to learn here!

This is my first attempt at caricaturing an ear, in an attempt to placate a carving friend who always inspects ear details. He, like me is a geologist, it must be something we've done in life....

My bench

Caricature carving requires little work space. This small bench I built for portability and fits any tabletop.  The design idea was partly sourced from a book by Marvin Kaisersatt entitled "Creating Caricature Heads in Wood and on Paper" with the addition of a carving post that I developed.
The author is a member of The Caricature Carvers of America www.cca-carvers.org and his book is a must have for anyone contemplating making caricatures.

 The bench is 38 cms wide with the front face hooked over any table edge.  Front middle is a carving ledge probably Czech in origin, used as a support for the work being carved.
On the left is a bench top carving arm that can be used to hold a caricature head with a small carvers screw.
Behind the carving ledge is a carving post that can be rotated to provide various support faces to lean the carving against whilst cutting away from the holding hand. All faces of the post and ledge are covered in cork sheet to maximize grip on the carving.

Here the carving post is removed to show the spigot and parking hole. Note the broad base of the carving post that provides sufficient friction against the bench top to prevent unwanted rotation of the post when under pressure.

Other holes are parking slots for tools not in use.

On the extreme right is a leather strip charged with sharpening compound for honing the carving knives.

My knives

Here are 5 knives that I do most of my carving with, and have made many of my other carving tools redundant!

       Lignum vitae               Lacewood             Brazilian tulip/ebony        Mora                                         

On the far right is a Swedish Mora knife that I purchased many years ago. It has a 5 cms blade and a 10.5 cms handle and is fine for roughing out shapes. The 4 knives on the left are typical of North American style knives with a 3 cms blade and a 13 cms handle. The steel blades I source from Warren Cutlery www.warrencutlery.com and the handles I made from attractive hardwoods gathering dust in my workshop. The broader blades are for heavy roughing-out work and the slimmer blades for fine detail work. The handles are designed to fit my hand after an article published in Woodcarving Illustrated Spring 2011 by Carl Johnson. They are extremely comfortable to use in a wide range of cutting modes. In particular I find the North American style of knife allows me a greater level of cut control where the hand grip is close to the cutting tip.