Mule Deer Relief Carving Seminar

It's February and many of us are stuck inside because of the weather ... bored ... driving the family crazy ... being driven crazy by our family ... and looking for something new, fun, and exciting to do with the extra time on our hands.

So, let's all get together and have some fun relief carving a Mule Deer Buck! You are invited to pull up your computer chair to my teaching table as we work through the steps of this beginner's project.

We will explore:
1. Carving blank preparation and pattern placement.
2. How to determine the layers of your pattern for easy rough-out carving.
3. How to use texture to add impact to your work.
4. The basics to rounding over shapes and elements.
5. Using wood burning - pyrography - for your fine detailing and joint clean-up.
6. Dry brushing your carving with acrylic craft paints.

This free seminar is meant to be an interactive thread! As we work through these steps if you have an idea, suggestion, or photo that might help with that step, please post it. If you have questions on anything we are doing, please post it. If you are working through the steps with me, please post your photos. No matter how new or how experienced an advanced carver you are, everyone has something to share. The more we all share, the more we all learn.

This carving was done for WalnutHollow.com and is posted here with their written permission. If you get a chance please drop them a "Thank You" e-mail note!

So, here are your supply lists. I will start posting the steps on Wednesday, Feb.4th!

Carving Supply List

10 ½” x 14” basswood Walnut Hollow plaques
graphite paper
bench knife or large chip carving knife
carving tools set –
v-gouge
large round gouge
small round gouge
straight chisel
pencil
transparent tape
220-grit sandpaper
foam-core finger nail files
ruler
dusting brush, lint-free dusting cloth
scissors
sharpening stones
leather strop and rouge

Wood Burning Supply List

wood burning unit - either one tmeperature or variable
fine point, shading, spear tip burning pens
leather strop and rouge
stiff ox hair brush or old, clean toothbrush

Painting Supply List

assorted flat soft bristle brushes
detail or liner brush
water and water pans
palette paper
paper towels
acrylic craft paints
raw umber
titanium white
smoke blue – blue gray
indian mustard yellow
raw sienna
burnt sienna
carbon black
polyurethane or acrylic spray sealer

:) Lora
 

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I would like to start our project with an open discussion on safety! So, anyone with any ideas, suggestions, or tell-all experiences, please post them.

Safety Precautions

Because working with carving wood, carving tools, knives, and other materials inherently includes the risk of injury and damage, this project cannot guarantee that creating this project is safe for everyone and is distributed without warranties or guarantees of any kind. The publisher and author disclaim any liability for any injury. (Standard Disclaimer!)

Keep your tools and knife sharp. Dull tools will grab or dig into the wood causing you to apply extra pressure to complete the cutting stroke. That pressure can make the tool unexpectedly slip out of the wood.

Secure your wood blank or plaque to your working table with a bench hook or wood clamps. If the wood slides while you are making a cut the tool can slip out of the cutting stroke.

If you are working from your lap using a leather apron or folded thick towel both to secure your wood as well as protect yourself.

Use a two handed grip on your tool wherever possible. Your dominate hand holds the tool to the wood while your non-dominate hand guides the cut.

Place the tools that you are not currently using in plain sight. It is easy to cut your hand or finger rooting through a tool kit.

Getting cut by a tool tip or knife tip is part of this craft. Flush any cut immediately with cool water, dry, and then apply pressure to stop the bleeding. Small cuts, of course, can be closed with a simple bandage. If the cut is large or does not stop bleeding in a reasonable time please seek professional assistance.

My Experience -

When I first when out on the net ... way back when ... I read a thread title from a known carver that said, "Never wood carve in your bare feet!" Now, that made me stop, wonder, and read her full post. Several years later her lesson came home to roost. Well, not exactly roost, more like 'made its point'.

As I was standing at my carving table, my hand hit one of my chip knives. It flew off the table, spun a couple of times in the air, and managed to land point first into the floor boards. As I looked down there was the knife, imbedded a 1/4" into the wood floor just an inch away from ... yep! ... my bare feet. I was lucky to learn this lesson first hand without spilling blood.

Lora

EDIT - Back in a bit with your patterns!
 
Lora, do you mind putting your location on your post? I don't know if it is possible due to not knowing your location, but have you read about the Family Gathering in July? You are invited you know. Be interested in doing a small carving demo/class at this gathering?
 
Hi Jonathan! I'm in central Maryland, old farming country about one hour west of Baltimore and northwest of Washington. My little farmlet dates back to a land grant of one hundred acres around 1720.

In fact ... I sit on top of the oldest mountain ridge in North America, named Pars Ridge. Today it has worn down to only about 1000 feet above sea level, but at one time it was as tall as the Rockies. Pars Ridge formed around the Late Silurian period (420 million years ago). Go here to have a fun look at how America was formed geologically.

Lora ;)
 
Hi Jonathan! I'm in central Maryland, old farming country about one hour west of Baltimore and northwest of Washington.
Lora ;)

Lora,
If you click on the "User CP" tab near the top of the screen, you can edit your info to include a location. You can be as general or specific as you want for listing it (or not).
 
Hi Toni! Hi Roy!

Today I am posting the patterns for this project. Since these are digital, you can resize them to fit your particular carving board.
Tomorrow I will be talking about how to determine the levels and layers in a wood carving pattern. See you then!

Lora
 

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I'm going to prepare the blank this weekend and transfer the drawing. I haven't made my mind yet about which one to choose.
Thanks again Lora!
 
Monday, Feb. 9

Working with your pattern - Establishing the levels of a relief design

Any relief pattern can seem confusing at first on how to approach the different carving levels to create a 3-D look to the work. Breaking a pattern into small units or elements and establishing where each one lies in the design in relationship to another breaks the pattern into easy to carve levels. So let's start today by working through the Mule Deer pattern.

To determine my levels I literally talk to myself, telling myself out loud what I see in the pattern and where it falls with the other elements, while using colored pencils to fill in my paper pattern.

The Mule Deer pattern is made up of five large elements - the feather trim, the deer portrait, the rope around the arrow head, the stone arrow head, and the air space behind the arrow head. This means there are five areas, each different to be worked.

Next, I ask myself, "What element is closest to me, what element lies on top of all of the other elements?" For our pattern it is the feather trim, which includes two feathers, a little buffalo hair, and the rope knot. The feathers are above the deer's left antler, above the rope, and above the arrow head. So this is my foreground area, the #1 level. With a colored pencil - light yellow - I mark fill in that entire area on my paper pattern.

Next, "What lies just under that top element cluster?" If you look closely you see that the deer's ear is behind the feathers but on top of the arrow head. His antlers go over the rope around the arrow head. So he becomes level #2 - the front midground area. Again using colored pencils I marked the entire deer in soft rust brown.

Now, "What is just behind the deer, but maybe in front of something else?" The rope that goes around the arrow head falls on top of the arrow but is behind the antler, so it becomes level #3 and is colored in light orange. The rope also falls in the mid-ground area, but is the back mid-ground - back behind the deer.

"What's left, what is the element that is behind everything else?" In this pattern its the arrow head, level #4, and colored in pale green.

Now, my pattern does not fill up the entire carving board, which means this design has a background area behind the elements. That deepest level becomes #5 and is left uncolored. It is the air space surrounding the carving

At this point your pattern has five clearly established levels - foreground, front mid-ground, back mid-ground, background, and air space.
 

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Each level of a pattern can be broken further into layers.

So let's look at that next.

The foreground elements of the feather trim holds two feathers, a knot, and some buffalo hair. The knotted cord and buffalo hair fall on top of one of the feathers, they become the foreground of that level. The left hand feather is under the cord but above the right hand feather - it is layer #2 with the right hand feather layer #3. I have re=colored this area to deepen the color as each element falls back into the design.

For the deer portrait - level #2, front mid-ground - the tops of both antlers come forward so they are in the foreground area of the face. His nose and mouth also push out away from the head and are treated as foreground areas. The back and bottom portions of the antlers, the head, and some of the neck are the next area closest to us and become layer #2.

The ears, throat, and front of the chest are behind the ears and face. So they are layer #3, the back mid-ground of this grouping. Finally the shoulder and back are behind all other portions of the deer, and become the background layer #4. Each area has been colored a deeper tone to note the layers of the deer.

The rope, level #3, is a very simple shape with just a little bit of movement in its depth. I have noted with my pencils where one rope lies behind the center top rope. This level has just two layers.

Our final level to the pattern, the arrow head, is also very simple in shape. The center of an arrow head is slightly raised and then rolls down to the edges. I have noted that drop along the edge by working the green with a second coloring.
 

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The reason we have spent this time establishing the levels and layers on the pattern is because one of our first steps will be to rough-cut the board using those levels. By dropping an entire unit or group of elements to its desired depth before working any shaping steps we can insure that all of the elements in that area will be either behind those above it or above those elements that are deeper in the pattern.

Board preparation

Using 220-grit sandpaper lightly sand the entire surface of the basswood plaque including the pre-routed edges. Remove the sanding dust using a lint-free cloth. Center the paper pattern over the basswood and secure using tape. Slide a sheet of graphite paper under the pattern and with an ink pen or pencil trace along the outer boundary lines of each area.

I know that we are going to carve the entire top surface of this carving blank, but I always begin with a good sanding and smoothing step. A sanded surface removes any planing marks left in the manufacturing of the board and makes the tracing steps so much easier. Sand with the direction of your grain so that you don't create any cross-grain scratches.

Do I need a photo of me sanding here, or can you live without one ???
 
Steps to easy tracing

1. With a ruler and pencil, mark two lines onto your board using very light pressure. One line marks the center horizon line and the second marks the center vertical line.

2. Hold your paper pattern up to a bright, sunny window with the ink facing away from you - you see the back, blank side of the pattern. The light from the window will allow you to see through the paper to the pattern lines. Fold the paper in half so that the top most pattern line aligns with the bottom most pattern line, crease along the center fold.

Fold the paper again aligning the two outer side lines of the pattern, crease along the center fold. Your pattern will now be folded into quarters.

3. You can now set the folded sides of the quarter pattern against the pencil lines on your board knowing that the center point of the pattern falls exactly on the center point of the board.

4. Carefully unfold the paper pattern on the board and tape three corners of the paper to the wood. I use either masking tape or painters tape because of its low-tack properties.

Does this board have an auto spell checker or do I need to go download one ???
 

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Tracing continued -

5. At this point use a red ink pen to mark any changes you need to make in your pattern. That red will help your eye stay on the new pattern line, instead of following the printed lines.

6. Slide one sheet of graphite paper under the paper pattern with the dark, glossy side down facing the wood. Use a pencil or ink pen and trace along must the outer line of each area of the pattern. There is no need at this point in the work to trace every line and detail as we will lose those detail lines as we carve the levels.

7. To mark a border along the outer edge of your wood plaque, open a compass to the width you want for your border.

8. Place the pointed metal arm of the compass against the edge of the wood, with the pencil on the inside area of the plaque. Holding the metal point against that outer edge at all times, pull the compass around the outside of the board. The penicl will follow your movement and leave a perfect border line for you.

9. And here is a copy of the pattern that I used for this area of teaching!

OK ... I want to thank the message board for giving us all this wonderful bandwidth for this posting. I am off to start cropping tomorrow's photos so its a good time for any questions or comments.

Lora
 

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Ok all Set, but heads up I'm leaving for Australia an New Zealand at the end of the month for a few weeks I hope to take this with me to work on when I can

View attachment 89079

I should get through posting this in about 10 days. The WalnutHollow.com finished pdf runs 48 pages, plus I am adding a bit here and there. So at 4 to 5 pages of steps a day I think we are good, Roy.
 
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