Carving Animals

According to vote we have a few carvers interested in Animal Carving. since i need a project for today's post. here's the way i go about it.

The first animal i carved was a horse from an old Andy Anderson pattern, it didn't come out well at all, looking more like a jackass, but my 2 yr old grandson loved it to death. ive tried to carve horses a few times since. even tried to carve from Lynn Droughtys horse tutorial,

but somehow came to a carving block and never finished it after i got a little off track by a 4 way bypass.

TOM WOLFE's Dogs

(here a dog cropped from a carving by tom wolf called danger)

Most recently I have carved several tom wolf dogs, with varying degrees of success, Tom wolf has the knack for carving dogs, from a great 2 headed pattern

among all his books ive found this book best for hound dogsanother great book for dog patterns is.

check out used books and eBay you can get some deals, but buying locally will get you the book faster.

TIP:when looking for tom wolfe books its tough to dig through all the hits from searches, because there is another writer named the same, who is quite prolific. tom wolfe the carver has a middle initial of J he used in some of his books, wish there was an easier way to dig through a google search for him... Tom wolf is not the only animal carver, but he is the one that came to mind.. if your wanting to carve a specific animal quickly, but cant find the pattern, just make your own, preform a google image search for the animal, search through the picture images see if you can find what you are looking for, dont quit there if you dont find just what your looking for, you can change the search from images to line art and search through them. once the image is found or a likeness, you can use it as a guide and sketch the image right on the wood, (lets all face it, most of us can identify or describe a horse, but to draw one is a different thing) the more artistic challenged folks can save it to disk, print it, and even change printer paper size 5x7 3x5 or so on, to scale it from full page,. or print it out and take it to a copy center use a xerox copier for better scaling, now use graphite paper and transfer your pattern to the block and whittle or saw off the waste, keep your images for a map or study guide of the carving, refer to the photos and line art you found on google as a study guide.. well that's the way i do it.. hope this helps somebody. Comments suggestions or better ways to do it are welcome.. remember: if you want to become a contributor write tom h. or myself stating so and we will add you as admin, you can post your heart away...