Sketches of my arranged scenes
During the long time it takes to carve
a block, I can only imagine what it will look like when finally printed. Sometimes they are better that I expect, and
others I am not completely happy with immediately. I am instinctively drawn to making my designs
quite busy and crowded, and I usually need to remind myself to leave enough
space around the objects. I try to find a
good balance between printed image and blank space. Below are images of my first carving.
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| First carving in progress |
Carving is hard work at first and
progress is slow until the image takes shape and then it is enjoyable. Whilst carving there is plenty of time to
think, and I try to image how it will be when the course is over, I will need
to be commercially aware to develop my practice into a business.
Having
problems with the wood
My plan was to do one carving a week,
and I was not anticipating a hold-up such as the one I have had this week. I made an eager start on my next carving,
tracing it onto the wood as usual, but as soon as I started carving I realised
there was a problem with the wood. The
mistake I made was to carry on when I should have stopped straight away and
tried to locate more wood. I am not sure
of the exact reason why, but it seems to be extremely soft in places and it was
extremely difficult to carve a straight line. My original source of lime wood did not have
the size of wood I needed so I had to go back to Oxford and buy this expensive
piece of wood and get it planed at yet another place. However all this was a waste of time, I will
re do the carving over Easter. Locating
the correct wood has been really difficult; especially wood that has been dried
long enough. This has been a tough week,
but a valuable lesson, in future I must remember to test the wood before I start work on
it.
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