Thread: Going back...way back

...the labour will be yours, and the skill required to manipulate the chisels and tools..
However, the simply brilliant concept will always remain Giuseppe Penone's

Yes, something I tell my students when they come out with an "I could paint that" in reference to a Pollock painting or similar.

Thank you, undie, very much. Today, I went up into the high mountains and found many useful pieces of log.
Pieces that I believe that I can use to explore the concepts presented by Guiseppe Penone.
I brought some home and will get 4-6 more next week.
They are 20-50cm diameter and 2-3m lengths. As much as I can carry & transport.

Since trees are a bit like snowflakes, to "copy" his work is impossible.
However, to explore the concept makes me curious.
I'd be proud to bring this off and offer attributes to GP for my motivation.

What does a forest look like if it were peeled away to the basic trees?

iggy, thanks. There's no doubt that I am physically equipped for accomplishment.
As Undie suggests, the learning process is in the attempt.
The best part is that I had quite a major shift in mind for wood carving this winter.
Penone's work has been quite a visual shock = I'd like to see that form by my own hand.
My single urgency is to stockpile 6-10 log pieces at my house before the deep snow begins.
I won't struggle with 15m x 2m logs. 3-4m x 30cm will do very well for this exploration.

I encourage my students to copy the work of artists they love even if only as a skill exercise or an experience of the humbling realization that what appeared easy was actually very difficult. However I always prefer them to take the appropriation route where they re-image the piece through the lens of their own individual experience of the world. Can't wait to see how you handle the concept

Limited quality carving time in the past fortnight.
But I've made a start. This is quite an exploration, what with no firm ideas or guidance.
I've figured out a whole bunch of process issues that Penone must be using.
Not just the "how" but the "when to stop." I don't have his philosophical motivation.
I'm hoping for some realization as I go along.

There are tens of thousands of log bits like these on debris piles. The logging contractor
can't sell the tree top, the public won't cut these up for firewood.
So first, the pine log that is being done "in the round."
(More or less) it is 6"/15cm tapering 67"/171cm to 4"/10cm.
It was weathered for so long that the bark was conveniently long gone.
I've decided to leave some raw log at each end. Basically a 1" Marples and a 30oz carver's mallet.
As you can see, I'm in a good distance, starting to think about where to stop.
Ugly, ugly wood with many dripping pitch pockets. I need to build a couple of cradles,
the protruding knots make the whole piece quite wobbly.

This is Hemlock, local another conifer which is a signature species with western red cedar where I live.
Tsuga heterophylla. Out on the mountainsides, I realized that I had no space and no desire to try
to work anything bigger. At the end of the day, just a lot more work and time, not to mention the piles
of chips to shovel up.

A bit bigger, I sawed off the best of a 10m length.
From 7"/18cm, it tapers 68"/174cm to 6"/15cm
Here, I've decided that I'll do the 'reveal' with just 1/2 the log.
Most of the local trees have more branches on one side than the other.
So the first decision was which face to work on. Fortunately, the plain side is
smashed up mechanically, it can be the back.
Next, snap chalk lines for the perimeter. I hope to cut into those approx 1.5"/4 cm
in the next couple of days. Out in the rain of the past few days, it's a little "water-logged."

Im happy to watch someone else deal with this sort of thing. Good move to work a smaller log.

As an aside, I was thinking of getting one of those mallets - do you like them?

Thanks raav, the hemlock log is about as much as I can handle.
Mallet? Love 'em both.

The red one is a 12oz "Shop Fox". When I started carving, my tool selections were not very big,
things like 8/7, 3F/8, 1/8. Those tools are OK to push around and the 12oz gives me more control from
a small 'tap' to a full swing.

At some point in a far larger carving, I realized that waste stock removal with the 8/7 was unbearably tedious.
So, I bought a 9/15 and learned 2 things: a) I couldn't get much done trying to push it around and
b) the 12 oz mallet didn't have the mass to do much better.
So, I bought the 30oz, solid lead core mallet (green polyurethane head/Wood Is Good).
Now I can pound away chips the size of my little finger. To smooth that out, I have a 5/35 and a 2/30.

They don't slip. I can watch the carving and ignore the strike. Any gouge, any chisel.
Once I get my "carving strength" back in the winter, I can swing the 30 for about an hour before
I get tired (ambidextrous helps, too). I wear $5.99 cloth-lined leather
construction gloves as my skinny hands get cold and the vibration bothers me.
I wear hearing protector earmuffs left over from my target shooting days for the sharp, percussive noise.

For field work, I have a 6lb hammer for wedges and a couple of home-made mallets from alder logs
for use with the froe.

Just a finishing note: I got a third mallet in a consignment sale of carving tools and wood.
The surface looked to be really greasy, no matter how I tried to wipe it off. I figure that the
polyurethane polymerization process did not go right (so I tossed it in the bin.)