Halloween Woodcarving
By Cyndi Josilyn
Reviewed by Mike Bloomquist
If you
caught my review of Cyndi Joslyn's book Easy
Carving you might recall that I wasn't overly thrilled with her
first two
books,
Carving Santas from Around the World and North
Woods Nativity. I have to tell you though, with Easy
Carving
and this latest one, Halloween Woodcarving she's won me
over as a
big fan. Yeah, I know, that and a couple bucks will buy
her a
cheap cappuccino, but here's my opinion anyway...
There is
a lot of material here reprised from Easy
Carving, but in an abbreviated version. That might seem like
cheating
at first, but it's done in such a way that this book stands by
itself as a
very good beginner's book. Besides, the repeated material is the
"best of" stuff and there's enough new material (with a Halloween
theme) that you shouldn't feel cheated at all if you already own the
other
volume.
This is a very colorful book with
lots of autumn colors (Duh, Mike). The photography is
excellent. There doesn't seem to be any gaps in the steps and the
viewing angles are good with very three dimensional lighting. One
of the "best of" sections here that we failed to point out in the Easy
Woodcarving review is a technique section on doweling, both wire
doweling and wood doweling. Great stuff for beginners to know
about, see done and try for themselves. That
carved-from-one-piece-of-wood mentality gets in the way
sometimes. It often results in pieces that are too fragile, and
many times dangerous to carve. Visually it looks like there's plenty of
wood seperating the blade from your fingers and then the parts breaks
away when you're counting on it for protection. Doweling is good.
Contents
Just a couple of nit-picks and I think I'm reprising this first one from my
review of the previous
book (which seems fitting). In the recommended first set of tools
the
author includes a v-tool that, to me, seems too small. However,
since she
uses the tool only for incised lines and never for stop cuts or
outlining cuts,
it's only reflecting her carving style and is justifiable. Still,
I would
recommend a larger one that would be more versatile and do both.
The second, the Halloween Cutouts project is actually carving jewelry
pieces... very small. When the carving gets to that scale I like
to cut them out on the end of a stick, carve it and cut them away at
the last minute. This gives you a good handle to use which keeps
the bleeding parts away from the action a bit and eases up on the hand
fatique from holding small parts. Not sure where I got that trick
from (Jack Price maybe), but it would work really well for the candy
corn.
Another
observation with these last two books... You're starting to see more of
a Cyndi Joslyn "style" here with these projects than there was
previously. I'm not recommending you ignore those other
books. They're absolutely worth a look, especially if you do a
lot of carving for Christmas, but if you're a beginner carver, a
teacher of woodcarving, and/or a big fan of Halloween then this book is
a have-to-have and the one you want first. In fact, I think I
need another copy for Melissa. Wonder if I can con her into
carving me that Cat in the Pumpkins project?
Hey fellow woodcarvers, 'till next time, keep them edges keen, the
chips piled
high, and don't be scared to carve things that go bump in the night.
Keep on
Carvin'
-Mike Bloomquist->
Mike
Bloomquist is a carver
and carving teacher, and a regular contributor to WOM.
You may visit Mike's web site, Wooden Dreams Woodcarving HERE or email him at m.bloomquistATverizonDOTnet.