Wood Carving Ideas
Wood Carving Ideas
There are a number creative ways to show off your carving talents, both traditional and otherwise. By exploring different ideas and styles you will discover how you cal express yourself in you carvings, and find your own personal style and techniques. Woodcarving Project ideas
Summer's almost over now, the days are getting shorter and the nights are starting to get much cooler. So it's time to finish up those outside projects and start thinking about getting more carving time in. Take a look at a variety of projects that I have done over the past couple of years.
Organized Graffiti: (Carving) Knives to the Walls
Students at the Belmont Hill School always leave their marks on the walls - just like they're supposed to. Since 1923, over 3,000 of them have picked up a chisel and created what woodworking instructor Steven Kaplan calls "organized graffiti": the 12" x 12" carved panel that's part of their graduation requirements. It's illuminating to look at how subjects have changed over the years, Steven says. For example, if you look around one of the meeting rooms at the Belmont, Massachusetts private boys' school, he said, "You see a lot of war images. There's one of Mussolini running, with a symbol of Italy in the background; one with the face of Churchill; and another featuring American warships on the waters. If you look at the dates and the names, it's '44, '45, '46. Those are images about the times."
Wood carving as a 21st century art, original sculpture and ideas, digital collage, artist's portfolio, writings, woodcarving tutorials for woodcarvers and artists, visual arts and woodcarving links, links to new movements and new directions in the visual arts. I use wood as a medium for original one-of-a-kind sculpture. Wood, containing and reflecting the complexity of nature, is, I feel, a medium deeply suited to this time in history. Many of my carvings show animals within environment, the environment abstracted (a different abstraction) in the unique nature of wood. And, I have been experimenting with digital collage.
Oaxaca Stylistic Profiles and Avenues of Influence
In the Oaxaca region of carvers and painters, we find traditional artists working alongside experimentalists and innovators. The avenues of innovation and preservation give unique identity and insight to their individual styles. What is practiced by some is often times not apparent in others. Some prefer simplistic beauty while others eye dazzling complexities. Some are uniform, symmetric, and utilize precise calculated brush strokes. Still others are preserving a timeless look that was taught to them generations before.
Oaxaca Distinctive Regional Painting Techniques by Village
Methods of painting Oaxaca carvings are uniquely localized to the particular village they originate. Some villages originally had reputations for being weavers while others were potters. As this art form evolved these carvers incorporated geometric rug patterns and mosaic floral designs into their work. A great diversity in method can be seen in this village. Manuel Jimenez set the art in motion by producing pieces with uniform circles or lines. The Morales family added multiple color outlines and much finer dot and line work. The Ramirez pulled from their Zapotec heritage and adorned their forms with geometric patterns. Castellanos developed a pattern in motion for their lizards. Cortez went the other way and created a soft look using colors for tinting and accents.
Carve an Easter Egg from a Branch
Carving an Easter egg is a relatively easy wood carving for Easter and spring. This wood carving craft not only gives you something to look forwards to on dreary winter days, but also is an Easter craft you can display with pride this Easter. Here is how to carve a wooden Easter egg from a branch. Dried wood works best for this craft. Sources include fallen tree branches, the firewood pile, old Christmas trees, dead saplings, and lumber. Because eggs are rounded, using a tree branch provides an already rounded piece of material to start with. Look for a branch that is straight for at least three inches. Cut out the three-inch length of wood from the branch with the saw. To make carving easier, leave a "handle" that will be sawed off when done carving.