Capital City Carvers

FYI: The Vice President of the club is responsible for scheduling the carving projects and, if we wish, the late winter weekend workshop. If you have any ideas for a carving program, ornament project or want to have a particular guest instructor for a weekend workshop, please let the VP or any club officer know. As a club we can't work in a vacuum and your input is vital in keeping the club vibrant and interesting. If we want to keep the club going your input is vital. This is your club after all.

Interested in some websites that deal with carving and tools? Here are two you may peruse.

Highland Hardware in Altanta, GA has classes of all types of woodworking and some carving classes. Their website is informative and fun. www.HighlandWoodworking.com

The Carvers Companion is specifically for carvers. It has patterns from Pete Leclair and Ol'Don Burgdorf. Some pictures too. Go to www.carverscompanion.com and click on Woodcarver Online Magazine.

Adapted from an article by Chris Pye Master carver:

Do you ever find yourself daydreaming about carving? What am I working on now? What do I want to carve next? Is there a pattern or rough-out that I have, waiting to have knife put to wood? Hey, I just saw a picture that would convert to a carving I would like to do. I see lots of things that give me ideas in catalogs and magazines. Chris Pye, a British carver and carving teacher has some suggestions to keep those ideas from escaping into the ether. He suggests keeping 3 types of notebooks, a scrapbook, notebook and a sketch book.

The scrapbook is a catch-all for anything you see...catalogs, magazines, books or pictures from the web, I am thinking Pinterest here. I have found lots of reference photos from Google images that help in my bird and animal carvings. I also save photos of people's expressions, hands and clothing. Folds in shirts and pants can be hard to picture in your mind when you are carving the features on the caricature you have decided to carve. You can keep separate notebooks on each subject to help find the subject easily. Storage of the notebooks may be an issue so you may have to be selective. (Let's try to keep the spouse happy).

A regular notebook is a journal that you carry with you. It catches your ideas and thoughts; comments on carvings you've seen, why they work, why they don't, wood that was used, the choice of finish; techniques you'd like to try, and so on. Don't discriminate or edit; just write it down. Note everything. Putting a date to the entry will help when you browse in the future. This may also help with future carvings to remind you how you carved and finished a project...a special paint mix, the type of gouge used. This has helped me a lot when I want to replicate a project and the time frame between projects is months or even years.

The last "book" is a sketch book. A sketch is an informal draft; descriptive notes in lines with perhaps a few shadows thrown in. Even if you think you can't draw, basic lines drawn in the shape of the idea will help. Informal notes can further define your basic idea.

I encourage everyone to think about what you want to carve before putting knife/gouge to wood. Remember, no matter what you carve: you cannot have too much preparation, but you can have too little. Carvings don't begin when you put a chisel to wood, but long before, in your mind, with the conception and subsequent design. So, that is where your efforts begin.

Some of you might think this too much work and just want to carve the club projects or choose one of the cut-outs Robert and Al have produced for club members. That is just fine. You may want to save the directions of those projects for a later time. Some may want to be expand their carving education and keeping notebooks is a good way to go. I have file cabinets full of reference material and idea folders. I also keep a notebook of each workshop I have attended. A sketch book is also with me. It never hurts to be prepared.