carving drawings

the map is not the territory

I’ve been pretty well immersed in carving lately. I spent last week at Pete Galbert’s helping 6 students navigate 17th-century style carving as they tackled making a carved oak box. These classes can get exciting - there’s no model for the class in the sense of “this is the box we’re going to make…” This time we had 5 different patterns on 6 boxes.

nearly done

The new space at Pete’s is fabulous - most mornings we didn’t even turn on the lights - my favorite way to work.

just daylight

Here at home, I’m picking up where I left off - more carving. I’m carving a series of panels that are stand-alone items; not part of a piece of furniture, just decorative panels. The works from Devon, England and Ipswich, Massachusetts are ideal for this because of the boundless variety shown in the many surviving works.

the map is not the territory

I start by choosing a panel from my stash, then I replane the front to get a finished surface. Strike margins, so I know how much space I have to fill. And at that point, I sift through the folders on my computer - I have one labeled “Ipswich & Devon” that has hundreds and hundreds of photos (13 GB worth!) - and narrow down my choices. These days I’ve been carving a few that feature a winding vine that curls into 4 circular spaces, like this:

nearly finished panels