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.

Front

Back

Generating a New Design: A Love Spoon

 I enjoy carving Love Spoons and I'm always looking for a fresh design. Often I will simply search the internet for images of spoons carved by others to get ideas or maybe try carving a design I like that was previously carved by someone else. If you have done the same, chances are you have come across the graceful  design at the right. It is one I like a lot and enjoy carving it. This is one I carved from a scrap of mahogany.

But I was looking for some designs with hearts for Valentine's Day and came up with only a few that I liked at all. Some were a little too complex for my skill level. I decided I might be able to use this design and convert it into something that would fit the bill for my Valentine carving. I downloaded a photo of the design and imported it to Photoshop. I then copied the image to a new layer and flipped the bottom layer. With a little tweaking, I was able to get a nice heart shape in the top section. Of course I had to erase some of the image to eliminate some of the curly part at the top.
I then merged the two layers to make one "flat" image. Then I created a heart shape that fit the upper area and placed that on top of the other layer. Merging the heart cutout layer with he spoon image left me with something I could use a s a pattern. Then all I had to do
was resize the image to be what I wanted for my actual spoon.
The result was a little chubby, so I scaled the proportions a little
until it looked right to my eye. The result is the carving to the right,
which is also carved from mahogany. The original spoon was photographed with lights and the second one was photographed outside in daylight so they look different, but they are both from the sam piece of wood.

The point is that a new design often lurks inside an existing one and with a little effort and a practiced eye you can find all kinds of new ideas
by reworking patterns you already have.

Woodcarving Basics: Session 1

After searching the various woodcarving videos available online, I found very little to help the absolute beginner. From my experiences teaching Woodcarving Merit Badge to Boy Scouts, I remember the importance of the four basic cuts every woodcarver should master: the push cut, the paring cut, the stop cut and the V-cut. I thought it might help some beginners to show these and present a simple project to practice the four cuts. I like a letter opener as a beginner project. So here's a video with both. enjoy!

It's About Time: Big Santa Finished!

Back in the early days of this blog (Oct.-Nov. 2010) I was working on a project I called Big Santa. He has been carved for some time now and sitting on a shelf, patiently awaiting a paint job. Well, I finally decided to focus on getting that done. He is now finished and I wanted to share some photos of him. I still plan on adding a base of some sort, but he's done! On to the next big project!

unpainted

Carve Your Face Off: A Makeover

Happy New Year everyone!

I covered quite a bit of new ground last year and looking forward to even more in 2012. I decided to look back over some of my not so successful pieces and see if I could do anything to "fix" them. Normally, I would leave what I've completed alone and chalk up the less than successful ones to experience and a reminder of where I have been. But, in this post, I will explore what maybe can be done to fix a carving I'm not happy with and maybe offer up a video show how I did the makeover.

So here is the original pattern and a photo of a finished carving by Will Hayden.

Here is a photo of one of two of these that I carved. It's really not that far off from the original design, but the face isn't right. At least i did not like the way it came out. And no one else did either, judging from the fact that it did not sell over two Christmas seasons on Etsy.

So I decided I didn't have much to loose if I tried to give him a bit of a makeover. I felt the body and feet and skis were fine, so I just wanted to fix the face. Since I left him with quite a large nose, there was enough material to work with. I also decide, since it was to be a Christmas ornament, I could simplify the face by carving the face smooth, simplify the nose and paint on the eyes and mouth.

And here is the result. A very much improved and cuter version of the skier. I now have the confidence to give one or two other carvings a makeover. of course, I'll still leave some of my older carvings alone. It's good to look at them and see how much I have improved in a year.

As I mentioned, I had made two of these and the other one isn't to cute either, so i plan to show the makeover in a video post. later...