Two gnomes ready for paint

I don't usually carve in pairs, but I need to stock up for some upcoming shows. It was interesting because I used basswood from two different sources. Though they look similar, side by side there is a slight color difference. The more grey colored one was slightly harder and seemed a little less prone to chip near details. That was the wood from Heineke Brothers. The slightly paler, softer one was from New Hampshire. I also used slightly different tools for carving each. Honestly, that didn't seem to matter much. They still took the length of time to finish they always take, so no real advantage in doing multiples for this kind of work.

Another Party-loving Gnome

Here's another gnome I made as a custom order for a Parrot head Club in North Carolina. They refer to the club as a group that likes to "party with a purpose". I can only think of one purpose, but maybe there's more. Anyway, this aging party animal is ready to go, with his can of Land Shark beer and "Fins Up!" hat. I really enjoy making these for people. It's so much more rewarding than just carving for the sake of carving, not that I don't enjoy that. The custom work is just a little better.
Painting this is especially fun. I like coming up with the Hawaiian shirts.

Celebrating Ecuador (and a wedding anniversary)

My wife came to me with a "commission" request ; to carve a first wedding anniversary gift for a good friend and work colleague. I have a lot going on, to be honest, but I haven't taken on any real carving challenges for a while, so I said yes. My wife is a designer of jewelry, so she contributed the design. The first looks were more like jewelry (surprise) and a little detailed for my talents and time allowance. After a few discussions and re-works of her design, we came up with something that satisfied us both. She wanted to combine a few elements of Ecuador, their home country. She requested several native woods that I no access to, but I did look up woods of Ecuador and found mahogany on the list, which I did happen to have on hand. The design incorporates a heart (it is a love spoon after all), Andean Condor wings and the flower, dahlia. I don't think they'll get another anniversary gift quite like this one.

Craft Fairs

I've been trying to do a craft fair per month. It's taking some time to network with fellow crafters and find the best shows in the area. This one, in Huntington, NY, is a good one. I did well this year and last year. The photo shows my current display.

Carving Letters

At 60, most people are starting to think about retiring. I have been away from my primary job as a cabinetmaker for a number of years after a back injury. But I got lucky and found a local shop that doesn't overwork me and kinda lets me do my thing. I love the job because there's always something different and it never gets boring. I got real lucky this time and was handed a job to carve a couple signs for a sailboat. I heard "carved letters" and "mahogany" and said, "oh sure, I can do that." I never have actually, so it's been an adventure, but I think it's turning out quite well. It's somewhat forgiving in that the signs will be painted after I'm finished. Too bad, no one will see the lovely mahogany under the paint and gold leaf. If you think you might like to try carving some letters, here's what I learned after some research and I hope it might help others. Good luck!

Local Press

December has been a good month for in terms of exposure. I have collected quite a bit of wood from fallen trees, courtesy Superstorm Sandy. Since I use this to make objects of beauty and function, this story seems to appeal to people. Here are two, quite different, takes on the story. The Long Islander and Newsday.

A New Home for Me

No, I'm not moving, well not in the real world. But in the internet world I have build a new house. The address ... www.sundaywoodcarver.com. A central hub for my blogging, selling carving, showing W.I.P.s, linking to all my YouTube videos and all else related to my wood carving life was desperately needed. By whom? Well, me. I just wanted to put all the pieces together and be able to put one simple web address on my card and people can find all the rest, if they are so inclined. I read an interesting article by a painter who has been doing craft fairs for 20 years and shared some of her wisdom. Her thoughts on having a web site was: As an artist, you must have a web site. Not that you'll sell more by having it, but people expect it and you seem odd if you don't have one. I set up my new home in one night! That's right, and I'm no web building genius. I used weebly.com. The easiest web builder I've ever used, and I've tried several over the years. If you're looking to set up a web site for your carving work, or anything else, I recommend it. [I'm not affiliated, by the way]. I hope you stop by the new place and poke around. Let me know what you think.

How I Sand My Carvings

 Here is a video showing what I have learned about choosing sanding grits.

Busy as a Beaver

I'm afraid I have become an infrequent blogger. I have been busy. This summer has been for making many, many spoons and discovering the joys of selling them at local craft fairs. I sit there and carve and meet a lot of nice people and even sell a few spoons in the process. One thing that stands out is the connection people seem to make with the woods I use and the stories behind the spoons. It leads me to think that everything I carve should have a story. So this little Beaver does. I have been an active Boy Scout leader for the past 13 years. As much as I enjoy working directly with the youth, I also enjoy training adults. One such leadership opportunity is to be on staff for something called Wood Badge. Once you get involved with Wood Badge you are one of eight "critters" - beaver, antelope, bobwhite, bear, buffalo, owl, fox or eagle. I'm a beaver. Everyone on staff ends up collecting a lot of critters over the years. I don't have many, so I decided to carve my own. Here he is, ready to come with me as I head out to camp for this year's course. enjoy!

A Parrothead Gnome

A friend asked me if I did custom work? I do woodcarving - I guess you could say everything I carve is a custom project. His request was for a "Parrothead Gnome". First let me say he had already bought one of my "regular" gnomes. I had to ask, "do you want a parrot that looks like a gnome or a gnome with a parrot head?" With this question, I revealed that I did not know what a parrothead is. After a quick web search I realized that was the name for a follower of singer Jimmy Buffett. Ah ha!

The request was for "a gnome with a "fins up" hat, hawaiian shirt and holding a can of beer". Sounds like fun, so I got started. It soon became clear his normal, clunky boots wouldn't be right, so I gave him a pair of sandals and a band-aid on his heel ("stepped on a pop top..."). This was super fun to carve and even more to paint.

Testing the foredom reciprocating handpiece

Here's a short video test driving a new tool.                  

Here's a link to the other tips available from Flexcut.

Spoon Blitz

I haven't posted in a while, and there's a reason. I have been in the shop cranking out wooden spoons so I could build inventory for some craft shows. This weekend was my maiden voyage into the world of craft vending. I started out with a nice event called Go Green Greenpoint, held in Brooklyn, NY. I didn't know what to expect, so I'm happy with the result, which was quite few sales, meeting a lot of nice people, handing out lots of biz cards and making shop consignment shop connections. I think the fair would have had a larger crowd if the sun would have shown up, but you can't have it all. Along with getting all good comments from visitors to my booth, I met some nice vendors and got some leads on the best shows in the area to be part of in the future.

A Nice Cache of Walnut!

I got lucky again this week when I found 18 feet of local walnut cut by the town and left lying for - well me! But if I didn't take it, I'm pretty sure it was going to wherever the town dumps trees. I plan to carve and turn these pieces. I'll post when I figure out what to do with it.

Harvesting Burls

A few weeks ago I noticed a fallen tree (maple, beech?) with 7 huge burls. I contacted the owner of the property and he was happy to let me take them. All I have is a small branch trimming chainsaw, but with some help from a buddy, we were able to get it cut up and brought back home - in two trips! I made a few small spoons from some of the smaller pieces. I hope to have a lathe soon and these will be exciting to turn.

Tweaking and Twittering

I'm still messing with name changes. My goal is to get my name and the products I make out there to the public a little more. I am splitting off with my Etsy shop form a cooperative with my daughter. She needs to find her own path and I need to have a shop that is just my carving work. So the new Etsy shop is The Sunday Woodcarver and this blog is now in support of that and called The Sunday Woodcarver Blog, though you will still find it with the old address. In addition I will be updating my facebook page to show the shop name change and I'm now a Twitter-er. I guess these are all the things you need to do these days if you want to sell anything. The trick is to have it all work together and make sense. Word to anyone who wants to go this way: think it through. Make sure you choose and image and name that you can live with. It's hard to make changes. I'm sure it won't be long before tools like Twitter, facebook, YouTube, blogging and selling will all be one thing, but for now, we have to learn how to pout them together so they work well for our purposes. I just want to get past all this and moving things from one shop to another so I can get back to carving and posting. By the way, if you're interested, you can follow me on Twitter @don_dailey.

Variations on a Theme

Pictured below is a favorite subject of mine - a woodland gnome. This one is named Kavish. I think this is maybe the 7th or 8th one like him carved over the past year. They have all found good homes, so I keep making them. His basic scope and scale is always the same ( I start with a pattern from an article in WCI magazine), but each one is different in many ways. After carving one or two, I started making him in parts - separate head, body and legs. Kavish was carved from one piece. There are benefits to each method. The reasons I sometimes carve discreet parts is partly to be able to use smaller, scrap pieces of wood (it takes a 4" X 4" X 10"+ block to carve this in one piece) and It's a little easier to handle in pieces... easier to paint too. But the work it takes to get the head to fit the body is a down side. I thought I'd be able to turn the head a little for some "attitude", but the beard limits that and besides, gnomes are peaceful and don't exhibit a lot of attitude! The benefit of making the one piece is I can hold him in a vice for much of the roughing stage, which I really like.

The variable features, that which really makes each one unique is in how I approach the facial features, the tools I use and the method of applying texture to the boots. Each successive gnome I carve gives me a chance to try slightly different eyes, noses, ears and facial hair. Since no one really gets a good look at these elusive characters, the details are up to me and quite forgiving of accuracy. Painting also varies and I have improved quite a bit in that area as well. The color palette hasn't changed a lot - he's still wearing red and blue, but I have a lot of fun trying to get the perfect face and beard colors and shadings. He'll be up for sale on my Etsy shop.

More Walnut Spoons

I was able to get a few more nice spoons from the free walnut I found, part of a discarded shipping pallet. Here are photos. Take a look at some of the previous posts to see a video showing the process of making them. They are going up for sale in my Etsy shop...

Salvaged Walnut Spoon

Following my last post about found wood from a shipping pallet, I made this walnut spoon. I still can't get over the fact that I was able to generate something of beauty from what most people consider garbage. Enjoy and please feel free to comment.

Treasure in the Trash

I am always on the lookout for wood that others might deem garbage or firewood and use it to make something useful of beautiful - or both! If you aren't a maker of such things, which is most people let's face it, you would not only not see it as something that could be carved or planed, but not see it at all. This pallet was left on the sidewalk by a delivery truck for sanitation to pickup, but as a full 4X8 wooden pallet, that was not going to happen. I forgot to mention there are lots of foreign objects in found wood (nails, rusty screws, dirt, pebbles) so use with caution, especially protect your eyes when cutting it up and be cautious not to damaged sharpened tools. I don't know what I'll make from this little treasure, but I'll post it when I do.

Be sure to check out some of my other carving videos on my YouTube channel - UltraD52

My Very First Blue Ribbon: Love Spoon

I am pleased to be recognized as a first place winner among several fine artists at Think Long Island First in Oyster Bay. I was the only carver, so it is a unique distinction since I was up artists of many types of work and mediums. But it's always nice to get the recognition.

I carved this one from a piece of cherry I picked out a friends firewood pile. In case you're wondering, the leaves were carved separately and glued into small holes I made with Dockyard gouges.

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