Sam's football player

My buddy Sam asked me for a how to of a football player from a "hen" egg.

Here goes. Oh yeah, I was bribed Sam sent me a wonderful little Jim Tressel.

It will be a couple days til it's all posted.

When I start out I divide the egg in 2 with the end grain on the sides. Then I come down about a third of the way down and draw a line around the egg. This will be the bottom of the back. You will need to drop down a little bit for the bottom of the face mask.

Next cut them in. I carve a straight line around the middle then back cut down to it from the top and bottom. The size of the helmet is begining to take shape.

More later,

post any questions and thanks for looking,

Doug Sludgeguy Keller

from the past

from the past here is what i considered simple, but maybe not for a beginner..

Basswood

a link to a album on my picasa at the just click the title of this post... post updated 7/23/09 Many carvers resort to coloring book's for patterns of items hard to find that children can identify with, coloring books are cheap, available lots of places and can be xeroxed to scale to fit the wood you intend to carve, and in the end the children can color them when your finished... Although usa has lots of copyrights on media, i wouldnt encourage you to go into business carving color book charters for sale, you could get in big trouble, but for your limited family needs i dont think its much to worry about...

Sheriff from disney/pixxar cars animated movie.

quick growth slash pine lumber. two 1x4x3" blocks glued up for this project i started from pine construction lumber drops for my Grandson who was 2-1/2 or 3yrs old, ok it was suppose to be "Doc" a 53 Hudson but a happy mistake turned it into a 53 Mercury, My grandson said this is sheriff not Doc even before it was painted... well i carved another the 53 Hudson, but he wouldnt wait for it to be painted, he took his Doc car home... and wont bring it back for paint yet, hes 5 now...

Practice Knife Skills

Recently while participating in a wood carving show, I noticed a carver at the next table whittling away on a 1x1x6 piece of wood. Upon closer observation I saw that he was carving a ball at one end of the 1x1. As soon as he had what appeared as a perfect ball carved he began carving the ball into a square. This got me interested in what was goin on; so I asked him. He said that he had just got a new knife and was learning to master it. This fellow had blue ribbons all over his carvings. He said he was 86 years old and had been carving for 50 years. I got to talking to him and discovered a wealth of information. One of which was the practice that he was doing. Seems he had learned that carving a ball on the end of a square piece of wood was an excellent way to learn to handle your knife. I have tried it myself, and I agree. I've shared this practice with several newer carvers and it works....

Beginners tutorials and links

Grab your Band aids, Knife, Wood, and Carving Protection, your sure to find a carving project among these links,

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This area is intended to aid the beginning carver find projects on the web to aid in their carving experience. theres a lot of Free tutorials around and i hope to post links here to join the potential carver and knowledge together First: And most recent

Carving A Little Guy Face In The Flat Plane Style

In this tutorial Gene Messer creates a small figure head in the Scandinavian flat plane style thought in the book by Harley Refsal. WEB LINK further discussion on Wood Carving Illustrated Forums at this link

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second: Tom H. Santa Clause Study Stick

Here is another step-by-step tutorial on the creation of a carvers study stick of good ole St Nicks face. By using this tutorial a carver can practice carving the face on a 12x1x1 inch stick, or tree limb, after some experience of making several they can be made easily in a few minuets and the completed sticks can be passed on to other beginner carvers to give them a project with visual reference, that they can learn. Tools: only requires a knife , while some palm tools make it easier, there not necessary Tom H. and myself used Google documents to collaborate on this document it really looked better in Google documents than it dose finely posted in WCI, because of the limit of 4 pictures on a single post, so the tutorial is spread across 4 posts... but it works, many thanks to Tom H. LINK to tutorial

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