A Quick Left Turn

"If you don't change direction once in a while, you're likely to end up where you're going".

I heard that the other day, and it seems like a phrase that applies to life, but it certainly applies to carving. Generally speaking, starting a project with a plan in mind seems to be a good idea. But sometimes, where you end up isn't where you want to be, even when things go right. That was the case with this Rolley Polley Santa I set out to make. I had a pattern for him, and things were going fairly well, but as he started to really take shape, I didn't really care for him and set the half-finished carving aside - for almost a month. When I was looking for a new project to start and I realized Mr. Polley had quite a bit of material I could work with, so I decided to try something different with him. I carved him down in size a little, took the belt sander to the rounded bottom, creating a small flat spot, and cut him a set of boots. I left extra material so I could carve a dowel tenon for attaching to the body. This made carving the boots, shaping the lower body and painting much easier, before I had to finally glue boots to body. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. You can see in the pictures what he was looking like before the boots, a finished, unpainted carving and the final painted version.