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Oct 22-26 Renegade Roundup, Lebanon TN. Check Steve Brown's web site for information
When I first started to carve 16 years ago, the basic way to begin was to buy a block of wood or find somebody who could supply me with the needed wood, a cut-out pattern and maybe a "go-to" picture to guide my progress. It was up to me to apply the pattern, whack off excess wood and fill in the details. Some mail order places sold "cut-outs" where they had already applied the pattern to a block of wood and cut it to a two sided shape—a front view and a side view along with a go-to picture for my guidance. We were lucky in our local carving club to have a leader that seemed to delight in providing us with numerous cut-outs that she had acquired from various sources. Does anybody remember the little duck most of started on? It was up to us to hog off the excess wood, round the caricature and work in the details (all good procedures for learning about knife control, wood grain and patience). It took a band saw to turn a block of wood into a cut-out, and most of us didn't have a band saw laying around in the garage or yard shed.
More recently, technology helped create a mechanism through which multiple copies of a master carving could be machined. This mechanism literally hogs off excess wood, rounding the block, shaping pattern outlines and providing us with a product that is literally 70-80% pre-carved. We can now spend our limited time and energy in finishing off, cleaning up and detailing. Today, most regional work-shops, and all mail order companies carry these "rough-outs". Some companies rough them more completely than others, but the end result allows us to focus on carving a finished product rather than figuring out how and where to take off excess wood, round the corners, size and shape the head, place the hands, hat, boots, or whatever. Those decisions are already made for us in contrast to what we had to think about starting with a bare block of wood, or a block cut out to front/side dimensions.
These rough-outs are really great for helping us acquire the detailing skills to finish off a predetermined design. But they don't help us acquire the skill or judgement needed to make a one-of-a-kind carving from scratch. Sort of like my musical abilities. I start with somebody else's idea of "good" music and play it the best I can, maybe adding my own off-beat chords and some rhythm structures. But I am only reproducing (and maybe modifying) what somebody else has created. That is good enough for me most of the time.. .unless I want to play a tune of my own creation. Then I have to learn a whole new set of skills and capabilities. Not too much different from carving. If I an happy duplicating what other people have created, I do it. If I want to improvise on what they started, I need to think and behave a tad differently to produce the modifications I want to make. The Summer 2018 issue of Woodcarving Illustrated has a article addressing this concern using rough-outs.
In summary, we have three potential starting places in our caricature carving: using a plain block of wood, finding or making two dimensional cut-outs or purchasing rough-outs from a supplier. Any starting place is legitimate. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses that affect what we learn and the skills we develop as we continue to carve.
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