Chinese New Year Carving

Rob Keeble

Member
Messages
12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Well today i am hoping to complete my gift to our neighbors to celebrate Chinese New Year.

In Chinese culture its the year of the rooster, and i found a design by a lady on the web of a spoon with a rooster carved into the handle. I started working on this carving a couple weeks back and hope to get er done today.

Pics to follow...too cold outside to get pics now.

But browsing you tube for a carving bench "future project idea"
This am i came across this guys channel and this video.

It struck me because of the subject in this case being two South African creatures, one a bird and the other a very dangerous venomous snake i last encountered during my military service.

I can appreciate the effort , patience and artistic talent this guy has but...i like to see carvings where the wood shows rather than making it so real looking.

What say the carvers, because i have the dilemma of to color or not on my spoon.

I am using basswood, which is nice and soft and straight grain but yeah pretty boring in terms of grain or color.

I would be interested to here opinions on how you feel about carving finishes.

https://youtu.be/dsJzev48B6w
 
SERIOUS???

WOW - that was seriously awesome.

It's not very often that I sit back with my coffee and full screen watch a video in its entirety. For this one I did just that.

There was everything in that video that just connects with me. Loved it enough to go to youtube and subscribe to the author.

Definitely an inspiration. What an artist!

Thank you soooo much for posting that.
 
Well here is my finished carving of a rooster spoon. Ran out of time to do any more cleanup and i find i get to a stage where i become super critical and start to mess it up more than i get it right.

All a learning curve i guess. Man you need sharp tools when carving especially softwood.

Not my design wish i had the artistic talent to come up with my own designs.

Neighbors very happy.

Also Linda made them a rooster cake. Her new hobby icing.

HTT_14151.jpgHTT_14124.jpgHTT_14097.jpgHTT_14088.jpgHTT_14115.jpg
 
Good idea Rob and nice execution, the cake came out nice as well :thumb:

A bit behind the schedule here... but..

Generally I'm a no-color guy (although using stains or similar to pop highlights can be pretty effective) but on the roosters I think you can get a bit more snap with just a touch.

I was going to suggest perhaps a hybrid idea like the branch roosters this fellow does with just a touch of color on the highlights. Leave it being visibly wood but pops the interesting bits out a bit more with some contrast.

TWRoosterCollection1.jpeg

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/chris-lubkemann-carving-career-crow/
 
Top