Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Suprised at What you carve/?

Many newer, less experienced carvers are surprised when they complete carving a face.  By surprised I mean that they have to wait until they are finished to see the expression on the carved face.  Some may even be surprised at how the features came out.  It is only recently that I have become confident that if I want a happy face, I can carve a happy face.  It sure wasn't always that way. 

There's an ol' saying, "draw it first - then carve it".  Some folks even say, "if you can draw it, you can carve it".  I'm not one of those.  I am one who thinks that it is a big help to practice drawing faces.  I do it all the time.  And I can see an improvement in my carving.

   With a paper and pencil, just draw some Santa faces.  Try to make them happy faces/expressions.
 I keep a pad of paper and a pencil by the telephone just for that purpose.  Comes in handy when I'm on the phone for a long period of time doing more listening than talking.  In the above example, notice that most drawing were somewhat happy.  What makes them appear happy?  A smiling mouth, round fat cheeks, big round nose!   Now, just transfer that to carving the face.

1 comment:

gog magog said...

I have seen drawings (and maquettes for that matter) displayed alongside finished sculptures, and often for sale at very healthy prices. Not that that was ever the intention for these artifacts, but people, and curators, seem to eat them up. I guess it gives the patron some insight to the creative process of the artist. There's a local sculptor here who makes these sketches that don't even look remotely like the finished product and I believe he's discovered a niche market sideline for himself displaying and selling these scribbles. Just putting that out there. Sweet blog bro. :)