Thread: WIP Celtic Chest

I was taught relief carving = not satisfied. I can recall thinking that if I did relief carving on all 4 sides and the top, I might see what I wanted!
Then, as my grandmother predicted, I would see "in the wood" what to carve.
All has been well, ever since.

Just keep carving. Bouncing off the walls until you land with what suits your head. There's no other reason to do otherwise.
I believe that this has made the diversity of the carving world what it is and what it will become.

Ok, here is an update of what I am up to. I haven't had a lot of time to work on the box in the last couple of weeks, but I think by tomorrow I should have finished all the wood work and maybe even get some more stain on there.
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Here are two sites for carving in the round videos, with quite a bit for beginners

Gene Messer’s Carving Videos « Jim’s Random Notes

Arlene (Carverswoodshop) Carving Videos « Jim’s Random Notes

Claude

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I was taught relief carving = not satisfied. I can recall thinking that if I did relief carving on all 4 sides and the top, I might see what I wanted!
Then, as my grandmother predicted, I would see "in the wood" what to carve.
All has been well, ever since.

Just keep carving. Bouncing off the walls until you land with what suits your head. There's no other reason to do otherwise.
I believe that this has made the diversity of the carving world what it is and what it will become.

I can't agree with this post more , just dive in & find you're way.
Mike

Originally Posted by Mike the knife

I can't agree with this post more , just dive in & find you're way.
Mike

I think this applies to subject choice and even style but it doesn't apply to basic technique. To be sure there are many ways to cut a piece of wood but few of them are suitable for every application/situation. One needs to develop an 'arsenal' of techniques for predictably achieving specific results. Otherwise you are just stumbling around in the dark hoping to accidentally come across the solution you are looking for. This is an incredible waste of time and resources, especially when most, if not all, of these techniques already exist. Re-inventing the wheel is next to pointless unless your only motivating factor is to spend lots of money and time creating stuff you are never happy with... a recipe for frustration in my opinion.

Remember that we are talking about physical skills here. Like any other physical skill, it progresses faster and with greater personal satisfaction through achievement, with competent instruction. Not even Mozart learned to play the piano by himself.

Find someone who can teach you the basics and then go off in a corner and play with this new knowledge. It won't be long before you hit a creative ceiling. Then go back (or elsewhere) and get some more instruction for how to get past that particular hurdle. Repeat process until you find you can go where you want without the need to consult. It won't take that long....

Every single time I have shared a problem I was having with a more advanced carver, his/her advice and teaching resulted in the level of my work 'leap-froging' to the next plateau.

The other piece of advice I would offer is... once you are on that new plateau, take the time to explore it. Experiment with your 'new' eyes and skills and have fun. But always remember, its only a plateau. There is something more 'higher up'. Sooner or later one has to go beyond their comfort zone in order to find the boundary of the next plateau whereupon one again seeks advice on technique and moves forward.

Again... you can do all this on your own, but it will take you a lot longer, absorb a lot more of your money, result in more personal injury and in all likelihood keep you ignorant of at least some of your potential.

Its your call....

Hi Whittling , I'm afraid that has not being my observation or personal experience.
To me there is obviously an essential basic knowledge which could be put down on a few sheets of paper & after that it is all practice & experience.
Soooo many people hang on to a teacher or expect the big breakthrough to come from bumping into a great teacher .In my opinion you may find a teacher but they are only good at being them & not your own self expression.
Often it results in clones elsewhere in the artworld , I know a well selling drawing book from a woman who has very little good artistic judgement & in my life, I am always coming across people who obviously were limited & stunted & damaged by her view.

I think beyond the very basics it is passion & experience which takes one to new vistas not teachers. Teachers can & often do just hold you back by enforcing their personal preferences - if we were talking mathamatics ,where there is a right & a wrong ,then fair enough it can be taught but not really in an art type subject.

Cheers Mike
　

Teachers, like any other source of influence, are a stepping stone. Hence my suggestion that after the basics are acquired, one should go away and practice (exploring the plateau) until one hits another wall and then seek further instruction. Exactly what 'wall' one hits is determined by the individual's personal preferences and the instruction sought is focused on the specific problem incurred. If the teacher is not answering this specific issue, find one who can. Or stumble around in the dark re-discovering things yourself. There's nothing inherently wrong in doing this... its just not a particularly efficient, or economical way of achieving one's objective. As I said... its your call.

I've been teaching for about 10 years now and if there is one thing I'm certain of, its that one cannot learn the OH&S aspects of carving, especially whittling, from a 'static' source (book or video) without paying a price, usually involving stitches but at the very least a lot of bandaids. People don't know what they don't know and there are too many variables to be covered by a book or video that cannot provide on the spot feedback as to whether or not the participant is doing it correctly/safely. They think they are doing as instructed... they are sure they are holding the tool correctly and applying force safely and no one is there to tell them .. "no no! Not that way.... this way!"

Get the basics from a source that can give you real time feedback. Go explore what you've learned until you hit a 'wall'. Come back (or go elsewhere) to find our how to get over that wall safely. Something offering real time feedback is of great value here as well, but not as essential as when learning the basics... just more efficient. Then go explore some more. Repeat this process until satisfied. Its not that complicated.

One final point... Good teachers don't tell you how to think or act... but they do show you how to see. What you do with the vision is up to you.

Yes thanks for that Whittling , it does make being taught a lot more attractive - that makes sense.
I'm sometimes asked if I teach whittling over the years but have always felt that it would be impossible to teach the safe handling of knives ,I imagine spending more time seeing to others cuts than teaching !
I must admit I am not at all fan of heavy gloves , as I find the holding hand to be of equal importance of nimble dexterity to the knife hand ,plus wearing such things may allow bad safety habits to develop.
How do you start your beginners off ? - I'm interested because this is the ONE thing that stops me even considering teaching whittling !
Cheers Mike

The ability to teach ie: communicate complicated principles in a manner simple enough to be fully grasped, understood and rendered, is a skill in itself. I have nearly 20 years as an engineer and trainer in the automotive industry and I used that knowledge and experience in developing my whittling programs. The principle of it is not that difficult. It involves breaking down what you, as a practitioner know, into small, sequential steps an then developing techniques and illustrations to convey those steps in an understandable and meaningful way. Learning how to do this however is a skill that itself usually takes training and practice to develop levels of competence. Its a fact that not all good practitioners are good trainers/teachers.

If you want to have a go, I suggest you start analyzing what you do. Break that down into steps.

I start out by getting students to sharpen the pencil they are going to use in the class. I watch how they do it and then I explain the first of the 8 basic 'strokes' in whittling... what I call the 'thumb push' where the thumb of the off hand provides the force against the back of the blade to propel the blade through the wood (not the blade hand/arm holding the knife which remains 'neutral'). Then we discuss how the tilt of the blade, controlled by the blade hand, governs depth of cut and the rotation of the off wrist controls breadth of work area. I demonstrate these aspects for them on scrap and then get them to try it themselves while I watch and add corrections/suggestions to them as needed.

Once I'm certain of a modest level of competence in this for each participant, I move on to explain variations on this basic stroke such as adding a 'lever' action where the knife hand pulls back as the off hand thumb pushes forward making the off hand thumb a fulcrum and thus increasing the reach and power of the stroke. Again I demonstrate and again I get them to do it while I watch/encourage/constructively criticize.

Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. From the way I work myself, there are only about 8 basic strokes with a few variations on each. I won't try to detail them here as we're getting way off topic and it would take too long anyway. (One of the many limitations of printed or even videoed instruction.... it takes forever to say the simplest things). As an experienced whittler yourself you may be able to infer what they are from what I call them:

1. Thumb push (as explained above) (2 variants)
2. Thumb pull (3 variants)
3. Chest pull (2 variants)
4. Plunge cut (2 variants)
5. Thumb pivot
6. Free pivot
7. Arm push (2 variants)
8. Rolling cut

Everything I do as a whittler breaks down into one or more of these basic strokes taken in combination. For instance, a simple chip cut is a combination of at least 2 plunge cuts and one variant of either a thumb push or thumb pull. Your analysis of your own style may reveal others but I'd be willing to bet it won't be many. There are only so many ways of pushing a blade through wood with control.

All of these are designed to reduce the risk of an uncontrolled blade movement which in the end is the only real risk whittlers face (if you don't count muscle/tendon strains etc.)

Once they have the basic strokes down, we start on basic application. Simple exercises in scrap wood involving all of the strokes.... simple primary and secondary relief cuts at first, moving onto more difficult shapes. I have tried to include most of the strokes required for the project at this time so participants get a feel for them before committing to the class project itself.

I have a project which the participants carve in the class by following me stroke for stroke (see photo). This was chosen so that they get a chance to practice all the strokes they learned while at the same time giving them a sense of achievement which doesn't come from just cutting into scrap wood. Its purely 'carving by formula'. No inspiration required. I provide 160 step-by-step photos on a CD plus 4 pages of notes that reference the photos by number and extra wood, so that participants can work on more copies of this project at home in their own time and at their own pace. The project is designed to do three things:

1. Provide a sense of accomplishment and fun and leave an overall positive feeling about the day.
2. Provide a project complicated enough to be a challenge for a newbie and which forces the application of ALL the strokes and techniques learned in the first half of the day but which is simple enough so as not to discourage/overwhelm.
3. Provide a springboard to other ideas. As participants become more familiar with the project they start looking at it differently. Where at first it is all a matter of repetition, eventually it becomes an opportunity to introduce variation as the imagination kicks in. This happens automatically, faster for those with higher aptitudes but eventually to almost everyone. The key is perseverance.

I think that's as much as I can give you here. If you really want to get into teaching this we can talk privately. Good luck with it... the world needs more whittlers!



Note on photo... I find I don't have photo of the actual project uploaded to photobucket so I've posted this one which is close. These guys are a bit more refined in the beard area than the project variant and attached to walking sticks which the project isn't, but you get the general idea.

You're quite right Whittling , we are getting too far off track from Celtic chests .
There is a fine line in letting a conversational flow on a forum take its natural pace & hijacking a thread ! Sorry Spoonman.