Archive for January 2019

January-February 2019 WOM

Welcome to Woodcarver Online Magazine

Detail from Shed Perch by Clark Weaver — Grin­nell, IA

2018 Inter­na­tion­al Wood­carvers Congress 

1st in Group F — Birds

1st in Class 603 — Song­bird — real­is­tic, painted 

Group F — Class 603 — 1st Place Prize — Tom and Lan­ny Simpson

 

From the Edi­tor -

With this issue we begin the 23rd year of Wood­carv­er Online Mag­a­zine.  WOM is, as far as we know, the longest run­ning online mag­a­zine for and by wood­carvers.  It has been and will remain free to all.   Like any oth­er pub­li­ca­tion, we can always use help with arti­cle ideas, show reports and pho­tos, etc.   Because WOM is a free mag­a­zine, there is not much in the way of mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion, but there is great sat­is­fac­tion is spread­ing the word about our art and craft. 

In this issue:

  • 2018 Inter­na­tion­al Wood­carvers Con­gress Pho­to Galleries
  • Pete LeClair: Doyle Cousin #1
  • Ol’ Don’s Draw­ing Table
  • Notes From The NetGet­ting Moti­vat­ed To Carve
  • Update to Events, Hap­pen­ings and Goings-On

Com­ing up in future issues:

  • 2018 CCA Carv­ing Com­pe­ti­tion Win­ners Gallery
  • 2018 Artistry in Wood Win­ners Gallery

 

As always, we wel­come your feed­back, ideas for arti­cles, etc.  Please use the con­tact form on the About page in the menu bar above.  Please sup­port our spon­sors;  just click any of the links in the right menu bar.

Enjoy!

Matt-IWC14

Pho­to by Marc Feath­er­ly at IWC ’14

Matt Kel­ley

Editor/Owner

International Woodcarvers Congress 2018 Winner Galleries

International Woodcarvers Congress 2018 — Best of Show 

1st in Group B — Relief Carving

1st in Class 202 — Scene oth­er than nature: Build­ings, Bridges, etc. 

Detail of Punch & Judy  by Debra Bergum — Lake­view, AR

As always, assem­bling the pho­to gallery for the Inter­na­tion­al Wood­carv­er Con­gress Win­ners is the great­est amount of work of any sin­gle arti­cle in WOM.  The 2018 IWC Gallery was no excep­tion.   In the win­ner gal­leries you’ll find 130 of pho­tog­ra­ph­er Marc Feath­er­ly’s excel­lent stu­dio pho­tos of the win­ners at IWC 2018, includ­ing more pho­tos of the Best of Show winner.

In addi­tion to the gallery of the prize-win­ning carv­ings, you’ll also find Mar­c’s can­did pho­tos from the Class­es, Award Ban­quet, the Judges, and oth­er pho­tos around and about dur­ing Congress.

As always, the thumb­nail pho­tos in the win­ner’s gallery are click­able, and when clicked will take you to much larg­er ver­sions of these great carv­ings.  (Much larg­er then you’ll see in any paper pub­li­ca­tion.)  The large pho­tos will afford you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ly look at the win­ners in detail.

To vis­it the gal­leries, in the menu bar above click on WOM, then on The Gal­leries menu item, or click HERE.   Enjoy!

From “Ol’ Don’s” Drawing Table


From “Ol’ Don” Drawing Table

Ol’ Don” Burgdorf is a carv­er and artist from Hohen­wald, TN.  Don’s fea­ture “Doo­dles ‘n Notes for Carvin’ Folks” appears reg­u­lar­ly in Chip Chats, and his draw­ings may be found in each issue of WOM and in past issues of Carv­ing Mag­a­zine.  Some of Don’s “Chat­ter­ing Chip­pers” pat­terns can also be seen at the Wood­carver’s Porch pat­tern page.

Copy­right 2011–2019 “Ol’ Don” Burgdorf. This arti­cle may be copied for indi­vid­ual use; repro­duc­tion for resale is pro­hib­it­ed with­out express writ­ten permission.

From Pete LeClair — Doyle Cousin One

 

Pete LeClair

Pete LeClair’s Projects

Pete LeClair’s Doyle Cousin #1

 

 

Pete LeClair is a well-known carv­er and teacher, author of three carv­ing books and a mem­ber of the Car­i­ca­ture Carvers of Amer­i­ca. You may learn more about Pete at his page on the CCA web site. Be sure to tour the rest of the CCA pages when you have a moment. In addi­tion, you may email Pete at pet­ele­clair AT comcast.net. Pho­tos copy­right 2001 — 2019 by Pete LeClair.

This pat­tern may be copied for indi­vid­ual use only; repro­duc­tion for resale is pro­hib­it­ed with­out express writ­ten permission.

Notes From The ‘Net

Notes From The ‘Net

Ques­tions and Answers About Carv­ing Gath­ered From Pop­u­lar Carv­ing Groups

 Edit­ed by Matt Kelley

Wel­come carv­ing friends to NFTN, ver­sion 2.0.   In this occa­sion­al series we will gath­er the best ques­tions, answers and com­ments from the more active Face­book and mail list carv­ing groups, such as the Wood­carv­er List, Wood­carv­ing 101 — The Joy of Wood­carv­ing, and the Inter­na­tion­al Fish Carvers & Painters Asso­ci­a­tion, and present them here.

Enjoy, and Carve On!


I dug deep into the archives for this par­tic­u­lar NFTN — this con­ver­sa­tion occurred almost ten years ago, on the orig­i­nal email-based ver­sion of the Wood­carv­er List.  The ques­tion and com­ments are still valid almost 10 years lat­er.  Editor

 

On Get­ting Moti­vat­ed To Carve

This con­ver­sa­tion start­ed with Alex Bis­so noting:

I seem to be at a carv­ing stand­still.  I have not fin­ished a carv­ing since ear­ly last fall when I com­plet­ed a brown trout start­ed ear­li­er last year.  I just can’t seem to get moti­vat­ed enough to either start some­thing new or com­plete some start­ed projects that I told myself I would get done this year.  Can any­one tell me what has worked to get them moti­vat­ed to get back to carv­ing after a dry spell?   

Wood­butch­er Jan  replied:

Get your­self a carv­ing­body Alex.  Invite a carv­er to come and join you at your place one after­noon ‚morn­ing or evening every week and stick to it I had a dry spell last sum­mer for a few months and than when my class­es start­ed I could not wait to get at it again.
Done 5 fair size relief carv­ings this win­ter so far.       

To which Alex respond­ed:  A carv­ing­body: would prob­a­bly be very help­ful.  How­ev­er, I think I am stuck with the body I have!   

And of course Jan had to have the last word:  SMART ALEX!!!!!!!!! I mean Carv­ing bud­dy!  And if THAT won ‘t work COME OVA  HERE and I“LL get you all fired up for carv’n!        

Joe Dil­lett remarked:  I can’t remem­ber my last dry spell but there are times I just need to back away from my carv­ing and pick up a piece of wood to make chips with­out con­cern about what it will become. Just enjoy­ing the smell, sound and feel of a sharp chis­el slic­ing through wood is stim­u­lat­ing. Most often after a few cuts the block decides what it wants to become so I just help it along its journey.

One book I just read, Draw­ing From With­in says that some of the best pic­tures are cre­at­ed when we are not try­ing to cre­ate a pic­ture but just let our mind loose to draw. Maybe some of that is true for carv­ing too?

Mau­ra Coop­er added:  Hi Alex,  I can sym­pa­thize with your carv­ing slump. There was a time when I was almost obses­sive with my carv­ing.  Now I give thanks for com­mis­sions, seems noth­ing moti­vates like mon­ey some­times. When I have real­ly been stalled, there are three things I found would get me back into it.  One was to clean my shop. Seems I just can’t stand it when its just too orga­nized. Anoth­er was to sharp­en and/or hone all of my chis­els. Theres just some­thing about a won­der­ful­ly sharp tool that begs to be used. But the best moti­va­tor that I ever found was to help anoth­er carv­er along.  Per­haps theres a young­ster around who would like a few lessons or a bunch of seniors who you could vol­un­teer to teach a small class for.    

To which Jeff Pretz replied:  Thanks for the ideas Mau­ra, help­ing oth­ers seems to be a great way to do a lot of revi­tal­iza­tion!   

Bing described his expe­ri­ence after return­ing from an over­seas deploy­ment:  Alex I had the same issue once I came back from Kan­da­har Afghanistan it had been by that time almost a year since I had carved any major projects, still trapped in the war. But I went for a walk one day into the Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment build­ings and found myself in sur­round­ed by out­stand­ing carv­ings of all shapes and sizes. When I walked out I was ready to launch out and carve. Now I don’t have enough time in the day to do any­thing but carve.   Bot­tom line is go to a muse­um or some where’s you can wit­ness oth­er carvers or carv­ings could be just as sim­ple as pick­ing up a new carv­ing mag.             

Joe Dil­lett:  Excel­lent sug­ges­tions Bing, espe­cial­ly going to a muse­um. That’s got to inspire anyone.

Loren Woodard com­ment­ed:  As far as get­ting your carv­ing mojo work­ing, good luck.  I think we all go through those time.  I went through one not long ago.  I love car­i­ca­ture carv­ing.  I got out some books on car­i­ca­ture carv­ing and read them thor­ough­ly from cov­er to cov­er, dis­cov­ered a cou­ple of new things I want­ed to try and yahoo, I’m carv­ing once again.  Good luck and get back to carv­ing as soon as you can. You’re too good not to get back on it soon.      

Final­ly, Sandie Burgdorf added:  For­get about all of the old projects that you think you should be fin­ish­ing. Pick a new project that you have been think­ing about but put off because you thought you should do the old ones first.   If you pick some­thing you real­ly want to do, you will actu­al­ly start and work on it. Chal­lenge your­self but make sure it’s some­thing you WANT to do.


That’s it for this edi­tion of NFTN.    If you see a post on one of the FB groups or Mail List­servs that you think should be pre­served in NFTN, please use the form below to sub­mit your suggestion.

NFTN Suggestions

Sug­ges­tions for NFTN
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  • Please enter your sug­ges­tion for inclu­sion in Notes From The Net. Include the date of the post, the name of the per­son who start­ed the dis­cus­sion, names of those who pro­vide the best respons­es. It is impor­tant that you include the NAME of the Face­book group or mail list­serv.. Your email address will only be used to clar­i­fy your sug­ges­tion, if need­ed. Thanks for your suggestion.