Eye Study Stick,

Woodcraft's got U'm ! above is a link to woodcraft

under $10.00 +sh

nice economical little study stick for the eyes by Marvin Daniels. 5-3/4" x 1"

6 steps and final...

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Dave Rushlo : face eyes and ear stick....

Link to 2 sticks, 2 side and 4 sides, my other Study sticks, More pictures HERE

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In speculation,

The Study Stick started as a take home lesson on how-to-do what ever the stick was instructing I would guess. Directed at the beginning carvers that was just learning, and maybe on to competent carvers that just liked what they saw in someones carving and was curious if they could carve like that. Maybe they were started just for the carvers that hadn't been trained or art-exposed long enough to gain their artistic since.

We can all can see a face, but few can remember enough of the detail to draw or carve it.

The study stick might concentrate on a better way to make a nose, how-to do eyes, mouth's or different hair textures. Just one carver helping another best he could... there are straight square study sticks with segments showing the steps, there is rounded study guides as well, IE: Harold Enlow's eye ball and hairball study's.

While carving my hillbilly's i can see how it would be easy for a grand,pa in the winter of his life, would carve a study stick for one of his young'ans that was interested, so grandpa could just pass the carving tradition on down in his kinfolk lines.

Sure we can all observe someone carve the same thing, but unless now in the days of video cameras and laser disks, if you didn't record the process while the item was carved, within a week, your probably left with a memory of the start of the carving and the finished, maybe a few remembered fuzzy glimpses of the middle steps and the jokes that were told while it was being done. Although the study stick isn't perfect "in a fool proof way" to learn lessons from others, its a dang good start.. Study sticks are not a chip by chip removal of all the steps like a video, but a guide of how to start with a stick and end with a likeness, "hopefully in even progression in the segments". I dont think a man could carry a study stick that showed every sequence of every chip pulled, plus it would take a giant red wood to carve it on. hum-mm maybe that's how the totem poles started?

There's more pics at the link provided above.