Bob's Weather Wizard

I'm starting with a story, The Lore of the Cottonwood Tree. There is a quiet small valley with a small river winding though. The 100 plus year old Cottonwood tree had it's top broken off and all the branches were gone. The bark was falling on the grass covered ground. The tree was bleached out by the sun. The Cottonwood tree spoke, "I see all the young tree's around me from my seed, but I feel something is missing." A warm breeze came from the south and whispered to the tree, "from your bark it you will be remembered with joy and comfort. Be at peace."  For me it is a joy to find and carve Cottonwood bark. As we grow older we may have some of the same thoughts.

My friend Bob has a weather station, so I wanted to carve him a weather wizard. I don't know if it looks like a wizard, but the face looks like a Norseman to me. I'm attaching a card to it so he has another source for his forecast. It's 8 inches long and 1 1/2 inch diameter. The eye pupils were cut in with a gouge and then burnt in to darken them. Bob said he had the wizard to point to when somebody complained about the weather. He liked it very much.

Santa is coming

This is my view of Cottonwood City, named after the famed cottonwood tree. The doors are a little ajar, waiting for that most important visitor this time of the year. Santa is lurking around the corner looking to see who has been naughty or nice. This has been a busy time of the year carving ornaments. These bark houses can be hung or set on the self. They are about 4 inches tall and all have a tree and a post. I carved 20 of these and they are all different with a simple design.

 

Baseball Pitcher

I was given a Dave Stetson roughout last spring to carve for a Christmas gift. Of course apple pie and baseball are Americans favorites. I like both especially the little leagues, but it is second to apple pie. 

 

Fin

I was looking at a blog from Finland and seen this character with the ribbon look on the bottom. This one is carved with cottonwood bark. It is a good choice because of the layers it shows on the rounded surfaces. This is 6 inches tall by 1 1/4 inches round. I like to see more blog's from different countries around the world to see what they are carving. Today I did a craft show in my home town. It's a small town where you know a lot of people and of coarse you do barter some. It was fun to visit those who come around my booth.

Comfort Bird

When I saw the Comfort bird in Woodcarving Illustrated I had to carve one. I liked the idea because of the touching aspect. I carved mine out of butternut and cottonwood bark. I used a knife to carve it then a palm sander to smooth out the knife marks. On the bark I cut the tail at a bit of an angle so it would show the layers of the bark. Both these woods are easy to carve and it doesn't take long to finish the bird. The finish is a couple coats of clear satin and then some wax. They do have a good feel to them. The pattern in the magazine is a little off, so draw a line though the middle and copy the one side for the other side.

Carving a Pine Cone

A friend asked me how to carve a pine cone, so I will lay out the steps I take. This one is made as a ornament and it can be carved any size with a change in the layout dimensions. Other dimensions will give different results and that is OK. Cones come in all shapes and lengths.

I use a 1 1/2 inch block about 7 inches long. This will give two cones 3 inches long and it will be easier to hold on to when carving. Bullet shape the cone on each end. I free hand the vertical lines a little more than 1/2 inch apart to the point. This will even out the lines around the cone. I freehand the lines because it is quicker and I have trouble following the lines when I carve anyway. The start of the horizontal line is 3/4 inch from the top of a 3 inch cone.I make dots at the vertical line at 5/16 for the first three lines and 1/4 inch for the rest of the lines. Draw in those lines. Mark a X in each rectangle. The very tip will be v-tooled out, so don't worry about that. Spray with Deft to protect the lines you worked so hard to draw. Chip cut each diamond shape. Cut straight down the inverted V and then cut at an angle up to free the chip. Go around each row before starting the next row.. Depending how good you carve this might be good but for me it is a roughing stage. I like to carve fast.

Here I went back and cleaned up my cuts and deepened the cut to open up the cone. On the very end I used a v-tool and cut from the v to the end of the cone. Now to do the other one.

Now cut these two cones apart and shape the ends. These will be ornaments so there is enough wood to add ornament hooks to the top. You may notice that one cone I carved was more open than the other.

I painted the pine cones with acrylic's. I painted wet on wet with three different browns and green. Turn the carving as you paint because it is easy to miss a spot in one of the corners. The knob on the top I used gold. It went well with the browns. When dry I coated it with Deft.

The Wink

This carving is from the site woodbeecarver.com. Don Mertz says, "Would be carvers would be carvers, if they would carve wood." It is a great site to learn carving using a knife. I have carved several of these faces out of 1/2 inch basswood. The more you carve these relief faces you learn there is a lot of wood to get the depth of the face. They are 2 1/2 inch by 2 inch. The eye pupil is burnt in. They both have a natural finish, the left one is just a darker wood. I had painted one but I like the natural finish better.