Thread: Carved Doors African Motif

Now that is some beautiful work Jack.
I quite like the design as well.

Its fantastic work. Interesting that they went for basswood as a medium. I would have thought that a bit soft/vulnerable for an exterior door in North American winters.

Its obviously an African-like design and yet you can still see the totum influence. It doesn't matter...its beautiful work... I'm just curious...was the design actually African?

Yes, I should explain the design development since I did not record the process. It was before I had a digital camera.

African inspired design might be more appropriate. Central African bronze casting and jewelry are areas of interest to me. Body art as in scarification from small cuts that create welting is incorporated as an aspect of this carving too. I initiated the design by building on a theme of a stylized head/torso and legs. I cut out templates with the basic motif, about 10 or 12 of them, arranged them by stacking, flipping them over, turning them upside down. I stuck these on a wall with pins just playing with the object and the negative space between them. I pay a lot of attention to " negative space" as any design must have a good balance between what our perception wants to focus "on" and what holds it together, or the space that envelopes it.

I would then take a picture of my layout, print the image, sometimes folding the image so as to create a butterfly of itself, drawing the mirrored aspect on another piece of vellum. This process of playing and adding on is what eventually created the columns. There is always intrigue in creating a mirror of images which allows me to "free-up" my staging in design. I usually flip the designs around always looking at the negative space and balance. The cross blades were the last elements incorporated into the design, I sensed something was needed to tie the design or merge some aspects of the columns that seemed to be floating a bit...so the horizontal sweeps helped in that regard in my opinion.

All this work created the basic outline of the design. The chip carving aspect was totally free form inspiration, just playing with the chisels sweeps and cuts to create interesting patterns as in the African body scarring. I did this as I went along just having fun with it.

Basswood is a great medium for doors. The wood is incredibly stable if selected from good stock with tight ring patterns. This is important to me as the relief work creates instability. Basswood is very durable and can be readily tinted, stained or left natural. I have been using it for years for building oversized doors.

Very nice, and what a great thing to look as a you await the opening of the door.

Steve