June 2022 News

A few weeks back someone was in a bad mood. Not only was the fence of the next- door neighbors kicked down but three of the pickets on the my front fence were ripped off, broken and thrown into the front yard. Since I had to repair them I thought I would share the story of the fence.

How the fence got started- There is a tulip picket that lives on the wall in my studio. Here is the story of that picket.

Back in the early 1990's I had a woodcarving student, Kurt Kennedy, that came to me to learn woodcarving to carve some replacement pickets for a fence that his mother carved. During World War II Kurt's mother had carved an entire picket fence while her sons were away at war. She had taken woodcarving lessons from a local woodcarving teacher, Charlie Sayers, who taught locally during the 1930's through the 1960's His technique book "The Book of Wood Carving: Techniques, Designs and Projects" has been a long time woodcarving text book. The fence picket was design by teacher Charlie Sayers and the pickets lovingly carved by Kurt's mother.

One of my longtime standard wood carving reference books by local woodcarving instructor Charlie Sayers

The original fence carved during WWII

After the earthquake in 1989 there need to be work done on my house. We lifted it and added the bottom floor which is my studio space. There needed to be a fence put in and after some thought about design, I decided to carve a picket fence similar to the one designed by woodcarving teacher, Charles Sayers, and carved by his student Mrs. Kennedy, Kurt's mom.

Start of a new fence

I liked the idea of teacher and students working together. I took two of the picket designs from Mr. Sayers and added a couple of variations of my own. From 1993 to 1995 students helped to carve some of the 104 pickets required. Some students carved one and a few students carved 3 or 4 pickets. Some were senior and are no longer with us and some were youngsters as young as 6 years old.

Sorting and installing pickets

When all the pickets were carved it was time for all hands on deck for the Fence Raising Party.

Cooper and Ian deciding positions of their pickets

There was lots of figuring out where each picket would live. Here Cooper and Ian discuss who's picket would be on each side of the post.

Young Sara screwing pickets to the rail

Then it was time to secure each picket. Trim head screw on the front and larger screws through the rails on the back. My daughter Sara was on the job.

The female install team ages 2 to 30

She had some help from neighborhood kids and student Marlene from Holland.

The woodcarver install team

Then we all took pride in our group effort.

Kurt carved two pickets for my fence after he finished the replacements for the fence his mother carved.

Cooper signed the back of his picket

Beth Class of 1993 and Ben age 6 both signed their carved pickets

John Wadsworth, one of the students of my woodcarving teacher signed his in his normal elegant style.

Over the years when an occasional repair would be needed or while gardening, it is always a joy to remember each picket that was carved with individual attention and care. Just some of the signed pickets are shown above. Cooper, Sara, and Ben, youngsters at the time are now adults, some with children of their own. And back to the beginning with a picket carved by Kurt, whose mother started the project that inspired it all back in 1940.

March 2020 News

---

On February 25, Max, the shop cat, went to Cat Heaven.  He will be missed sitting right on top of tool rolls and checking out the woodcarvers progress.  

Welcome the new batch of new woodcarvers.

Father and Son woodcarvers. Great job.

A special shout out to Tove an eight year old with a passion for carving.

Niki just finished this carving that was started by her mother in Japan. It was mostly carved but Niki sanded the background and added a tiny bit of color to make the piece really sing.

Doug finished this beautiful Padauk abstract. He was going for a thin flowing form. It almost looks alive.

Where It Lives. Last year if you were in the studio on a Saturday you may have heard one of many of Robyn's stories of her "battle" with a neighborhood skunk that wanted to take up residence under her deck. She tried screening, barricading, loud music, flashing lights even water from a hose, all to no avail. So after months of battling the little critter she had the deck removed and landscaped her back yard. To celebrate her Victory? she carved and painted these little guys that she is happy to have in her back yard.

Where It Lives. This is the home for Art's rattle. It lives with his beautiful Great grandchild.

Where It Lives. Martha's beautiful and whimsical cat carving was excitedly received by her niece. That smile says it all.

Randall Kids woodcarving class. Vincent takes on some lettering with carving and wood-burned accents.

For their second projects the Randall kids walked up to look at the animals the in Museum collection. These guys really did a nice job of capturing the spirit of the animals. The butterfly and the howling wolf are both projects that took a lot of sanding time.

The Randal Kids Woodcarving class did some great work this session. Wonderful attention to detail.

The spoon carving class for adults has lots of beautiful spoons happening. Above are two matching alder spoons.

Another alder spoon in different stages. First the pattern, second roughing out with a hatchet.

Here is the almost completed spoon.

Or is it a beautiful, sensual, abstract sculpture?

One of my repair jobs. This is The infant Jesus of Prague. He was brought to me with the raised had missing and holding nothing but a tiny nail in his left hand.

January 2019 News

---

Emilio shows off his Grapes and Leaves. Emilio has been a self taught woodcarver and much to my delight did not have any awful habits to unlearn. Great job.

Welcome to Michelle, Grapes and leaves graduate.

Martha just finished another little owl. Carved again from an old piece of redwood with lots of tiny pin knots and burly grain.

We all agreed that this little guy has attitude.

A trip down Memory Lane: Debbie G carved this lovely shell from elm and gave it as a gift to a friend maybe 15 years ago. On a recent visit, there it was sitting on the table all these many years. It looked a little dry but after a quick wipe with some oil it looks as lovely as when she first carved it.

Here is a view of the back side.

Lorraine's sculpture has finally arrived to it's home in Mexico. She has had quite a journey. Mother Magdalen was scheduled to arrive in Palenque on Christmas eve in a special handmade crate. For some unknown reason, Lorraine never found out why, she was turned back at the US Mexico Border. UPS brought her back to Redwood City and just Thursday she finally made it to her destination. She went by air, carefully wrapped in a suitcase of one of the Sisters that was going there. What a wild ride she had.

I recently completed this piece carved from Sequoia. I experimented with a Japanese finish called Shou Sugi Ban or Yakisugi. It is a treatment where you burn the surface to produce a dark charred effect. It is most often used architecturally on interior and exterior wood to make it more weather resistant as well as insect resistant.

For many years I have had a desire to carve the wonderfully dramatic profile of an artist that I met many years ago. He was a puppeteer, dancer and all around fabulous artist. This angled chunk of wood called out to me.

The piece reminds me of a sea shell in the back. Still lots to learn to make the charring work how I would like on a carved surface.

December 2018 News

---

George brought in a bundle of carved Christmas ornaments that he has carved over the years. It was so fun to see all the different types of carved ornaments that are possible with mostly a carving knife.

Here are some stars and crosses. The two stars are basswood, the two dark crosses are carved from walnut, the cross in the upper right is carved from butternut, the hand holding a cross is basswood and the cross to the right of that one is cherry. You can see the beautiful knife worked surface.

Several months ago Lorraine finished this beautiful carving of Mother Magdalen (the foundress of her order) that is to live in Palenque, Mexico with some the Sisters from her order there. A special crate was built to ship her since they all thought she was just too big to take on the plane. She is scheduled to arrive on Christmas eve. What a lovely present that will be.

Lorraine just completed this piece. The abstracted dancing figure is carved from Walnut and finished with Watco Natural Oil.

The back has a wood- burned inscription burned in a spiral.

Thursday evening woodcarver, Babak, finished his grapes and leaves. Welcome to our group.

Ebby also finished his grapes and leaves. Really lovely carving.

Martha finished this carving for her twin sister. The fanciful and mythical version of Garfield and Odie was completely her creation inspired by their love of the characters as kids.

The inscription translates to "I hate Mondays"

The owl is also completed by Martha. It is carved from a lovely old piece of Redwood with Birdseye figure throughout. Hard to carve but beautiful.

Stan carved and painted this Duck for his granddaughter. One of the hardest parts was getting it to float even in the water. A small weight inlayed in the back of the tail leveled it out.

Lorraine carved this beautiful Tau cross from Cherry wood.

Rosie finished her hummingbird carving. The background is texture punched and the details of the bird and flowers are wood-burned.

Here is Twiggy's mask from the Balinese mask carving class painted and with a stone inlaid in the front. Her husband Arthur is modeling it. Pretty dramatic.

One of my favorites from George's box of ornaments. These two little birds sit on a swing and gently rock.

A lovely stirring spoon finished the last night of the Randall Fall Class.

Sarah from the Randall Class made this beautiful wood spatula from the fall off from her spoon.

Laura from the Randall class worked hard to get 5 spoons carved. Again a big thanks to Owen for the great walnut scraps.

Sherman carved the most delicate walnut bowl. This spoon is the partner to the bowl that he had previously carved. Beautiful job.

Small spoons were popular this session.

Mark carved this interesting double bowl. Hard to hold down and hard to carve in walnut. I really like the way the top edge looks like an infinity symbol.

Carved from some Japanese maple Shirley used the natural crook to carve a spoon.

This guy is part of the wild life exhibit at the Randall. He was injured and rescued as a baby and is not able to fend for himself so he is a long time resident and quite a wonderful character. With the kids carving class we sometimes will take a short break from carving a walk up and visit him.

Sophia decided to carve a raccoon for her second project.

Here is the carving up close. Carved from Sugar pine and wood burned. When his front leg broke off Sophia looked at it and decided to leave the leg off. He would be the first of the animals in her group of disabled animals.

Pavel carved this canoe from sugar pine.

November 2018 News

---

In the Balinese tradition once a year, October 27 this year, is the Anniversary of metal tools. On that day you sharpen and clean your tools and offer thanks to them for allowing you do your work. Here is Anom offering blessings in Bali.

The alter is covered with elaborate floral arrangements and luscious fruit and rice offerings.

Freshly sharpened tools topped with beautiful floral arrangements and incense.

In Bali all metal tools are honored and decorated, carving tools, kitchen knives and even the bicycles and scooters.

Here is the Berkeley version as the sharpened tools got added to the alter as I finished sharpening them. They seem to carve better now.

On Thursday evening Nicole and Kyle finished Grapes and Leaves. Welcome to our group.

Art finished off 8 red-nosed reindeer ornaments for his yearly Christmas gift to his family. I knew that I had some ball head straight pins in my sewing supplies that would make a great red nose. I found 7 but didn't give up until the eighth one showed up.

Bradley finished his intarsia chipmunk. He wood-burned the stripes and other details.

Tyler helped me with an adult toymaking class that was held at the studio. She is now an "expert" at balancing the fisherman toys.

One of the balancing fishermen from the Adult class.

Moishe made three toys.

Lots of smiles and giggles.

Some were harder to balance than others but Tyler managed to get them all balancing.

Because of the change in weight of the Balancing Eskimo the fish had to be "weigh" bigger to balance.

After the Adult class Tyler did another version of the balancing fisherman using an old fashioned clothes pin and a wire hanger. She is certainly the in house expert.

Halloween fell on my Randall Museum teaching day so I brought my very first Balinese mask to wear for the KIds carving class. 

Sophia models her Halloween masks from the Randal Kids Carving Class made on Oct 31. 

Henry wearing his wire mesh mask made on Oct 31 and proudly used for Trick or Treating that night. 

Davit and his creation.  

Radhika was able to finish off her mask from the Mask carving workshop in time for a Halloween costume party.  Her identity remained anonymous until she removed that mask well into the party.  

A big welcome to George who recently joined our Thursday group after moving from North Carolina.  George started knife carving when he retired 30 years ago.  He is an expert with a whittling knife.  Here he is working on the first of several traditional Swedish carved (Dalecarlian horse or Dala) horses that he has planned for Christmas gifts.  The one on the right is one he completed previously and has the most delightful textural painted flowers.  I can't wait to see the process for painting them.  

The Randall adult carving group is doing such wonderful work on hand carved bowls and spoons. Thanks to Owen for the great walnut scraps. They are being transformed into the most beautiful pieces.

Sherman carved the most delicate and thin walled walnut bowl.  It is about the size of the teacup but oval shaped.  

Laura is on her second walnut serving spoon.

Yinlan carved a bowl with a cat shape. A most wonderful unexpected design element is that the grain of the bowl gives an optical illusion of the snout of the cat and from some angles it looks like a cat head rather than an cat shaped bowl.

Corey is happy about the thinning out of the sides of her bowl.  There is some really wonderful tools marks on the interior.  It is somewhat like looking at clouds when you can just make out different critters.  

Marilyn finished her sugar pine spatula/spoon.  I love the decorative ball at the spoon’s end.  

Sarah is working on this lovely walnut serving spoon.

John has successfully combined a lovely soft gouge texture on the interior of his bowlWhile the outside is a striking contrast of random angular facets.

Pavel did a great job carving his flower.

Sophia with her flower carving from the Randall Kids Carving Class.

I wanted to introduce Twiggy to you all. She will be keeping the studio open on Saturday December 1, 2018 while I am attending a workshop.

Twiggy creates furniture, musical instruments, and small-scale sculpture. She likes to combine advanced digital fabrication technique with traditional handwork. At her day job, she teaches students at UC Berkeley how to operate both traditional and modern machineries. In her spare time, she likes to learn different skills of handwork such as woodcarving and stained glass.

Twiggy was in the mask workshop and carved this lovely mask.  She is working on the final finishing and I can't wait to she how she handles the coloring.  

This is Twiggy's first mask that she started when she was my assistant at the Sunnyside Randall Kids and Adult classes.  She finished it at the studio.  Lovely use of color and texture.  

Wood carved furniture by Twiggy

Key board instrument from Twiggy's college study.

Electric Cello also from her graduate study.

October 2018 News

---

Cookie, this lovely 89 year old was generous enough to bring and share this carving that her father carved in a Japanese internment camp. She was 12 years old at the time. She remembers that the men that carved together would get their wood from the containers that the food was delivered in. Although the piece of Pine is very detailed the wood is only 3/4" thick x 11" x 27". Check out http://50objects.org for some interesting stories of those times.

Here is a close up of some of the extreme undercutting and detailed carving and the wonderful use of the background texture. Cookie is still surprised that her father had never carved before and never carved after the time in the camps. http://50objects.org

http://50objects.org

Nicole carved this wonderful spoon from maple. This last Saturday she had a second spoon to finish and wanted to give it as a gift. She had the inside of the bowl carved and needed to shape the back of the bowl and the handle. Using the Shinto saw rasp made fast work of it but one stroke too many and she went through the bowl in a spot. We looked at it and tried to figure out a patch or change to the bowl shape and she finally decided to start over with a new piece. With a new slightly more shallow bowl and a more cooperative wood, cherry, she got it carved and roughed out and ready for final sanding in a very short amount of time. She now has a beautiful cherry spoon for the gift, and the spoon with the hole can be a test piece for how to repair a hole. A win-win.

John finished his grapes and leaves and opted to add some color.

Stan found a wonderful spalted Oak log. After a couple of incarnations it became the cave-like backing for the buddhist head that he had done in a Japanese woodcarving class. Inspired by a picture of a Buddhist monk he added the cloth.

Echo has started on her holiday presents. The knot in the pine made a perfect eye for the shark. Beads and leather make the connections and the fins.

Tyler completed her dancing monkey pantin cut from alder wood with copper wire joints.

Tyler is student teaching and is hoping to make toys with her 4th graders for her "solo" teaching days. In preparation on Saturday she made 3 Balancing Fishermen toys. She will do a few more to be ready.

Laurie finished the wood portion of her Teke inspired mask. Lots of fiber and adornment to add. She did a beautiful job on the coloring and surface design.

Lorraine carved this walnut spiral necklace for her niece.

The Randall spoon and bowl carving classes have started on Wednesday evenings. A large class of enthusiastic carvers.

October 2018 Balinese Mask Carving News

---

For two weekends in October Tharp Carving Studio hosted Balinese guest artist Ida Bagus Anom Suryawan.

Balinese Mask Carving Workshop #1

Week one of Balinese mask carving. The first step was to rough out the mask design. Ashley and Twiggy are using the small hatchet to do some of the rougher work. The younger carvers sat Bali style right on the ground.

Here is Art working on his mask on the first day. The last mask that Art did at our last Balinese workshop was a representation of catching the biggest fish ever. This year he is doing a mask representing loosing the biggest fish ever. The two masks will live as a pair. The first being finely sanded. This years mask has many of the tool marks left to add to the feeling of loosing that big fish.

Each mask was so unique. Art's mask is the third from the left. They all have some final work to do but they are all so very wonderful.

Here is Schuyler with Anom at the end of Workshop #1.

Owen carved this serene and meditative mask.

No doubt that Rise had fun carving. The weather was perfect and we all had delicious Balinese lunch.

Ashley, just like with her camphor bowl, worked tirelessly. Her mask with the open mouth was one of the more difficult designs, according to Anom.

Balinese Mask Carving Workshop #2

Workshop #2 of Balinese Mask carving. Again it was a very diverse group. 12 year old Echo with 4 year of experience under her belt and John with just the Grapes and leaves carved. Elena has attended every Mask workshop since we started having them so this makes #5 for her.

Martha was very skilled and limber. I think all of her spoon carving has paid off.

Radhika, looks so happy to be carving some softer wood. Since Grapes and leaves she has only carved plum wood which is very, very hard and curly grained. The Pule wood is very soft and we soaked it in water over night to facilitate the fast and smooth removal of the wood.

Echo at the end of day one. Pule wood (also know as Pulai), or by the scientific name Alstonia scholaris carves very well when wet. It takes and holds details really well and when dry it is very easy to sand, polish and paint. In my experience the wood is really good for masks since it is very sturdy yet very light when dry.

Max, the studio cat, sat right on top of the reference books and in the middle of everything.

Echo mastered the use of the finishing knives very quickly. It is a bit tricky but this picture shows her safe and efficient use of the tool.

Here are the final masks from Workshop #2. The one on the far right has a patch in the area right under the eye. When taking out the back of the mask it is so easy to take just one stroke too much. That low spot on either side of the nose next to the eye is way lower than you think so it is a common place to go too far.

Tool Sharpening 
Anom, shared with us that one day a year (Oct 27 this year) he lets his tools  rest.  The tools allow him to carve and provide for his family.  On that day he cleans and sharpens his tools and  then lays them out on an altar and offers them special foods, prayers and incense,  He thanks them for all their hard work.  

On Saturday October 27 at 4PM- 6PM  Tools sharpening and Gratitude Berkeley Style.

September 2018 News

---

Saturday woodcarving.

Welcome to Grapes and Leaves graduate Nicole

Allen finished his grapes and leaves and is now going to tackle letter carving.

Jon finished Grapes and Leaves and is on to mastering decorative carving in the Southwest style.

Viviana finished her Grapes and Leaves in just 3 sessions. What a lovely job she did carving them.

Izumi finished her grapes and leaves. Congratulations.

Amelia carved her fish holding a balloon for a special Birthday gift. I love the water texture.

5 11/12 year old Katrina finished her carving of an undersea magical world.

Martha completed her Mother Bear with Twins. This was carved from a beautiful piece of redwood.

Here is a closer look at the redwood. It was partially ribbon grain and small "birdseye" knots. Beautiful but tough to carve.

Lorraine finished this lovely walking/hiking stick carved from Claro Walnut and affixed to an Aspen branch. It stands a bit less than 5 feet high.

Congratulations to Echo on her Third Place award in the Junior category in the Tri-Valley Woodcarvers Competition.

Echo also won Second Place award and best in category in the Junior category in the Tri-Valley Woodcarvers Competition for her Fantasy piece. Congratulations Echo, we are all so proud of you.

This was an repair job that I finished this last month. These gorgeous carved horses were carved for my customer in her youth. She is now in her 80's. I had to repair and replace a couple of ears, and carve down the tail of the foal that had been previously repaired and was not really correct. The hardest part was to dull down an extremely shiny finish that was also from that previous repair. Pretty stressful working on something so old and also sentimentally valuable. But she is now happy.

This is how I had to deal with carving the ear. It was about 1/4" long and hard to hold on to.

Here is the maker's mark. I wasn't able to find any information about it. Too bad, it would have been interesting to know about.

I sometimes get requests for private lessons. Suchi and James did a private class for their anniversary. They cut and carved these lovely picture frames to frame some special pictures.

This last month I got a call about another private class. This one was a first for me. The young man wanted to do a special woodcarving class for a bachelor party. What? Well it turns out that the groom was an avid outdoors man and loved DIY. After a bit of planning we came up with an idea based on Robin's clock that was posted on my website. It was a wonderful bunch of young men and we had a great time.

Each of the guys wood burned their name into the back of the clock. I am sure it will be a treasured piece.

Getting ready for the Bali workshop.

The studio is closed for regular classes on Saturday October 6 and 13. You are welcome to stop by and meet Anom and check out the activities.

Please check my website for studio schedule.
http://tharpcarvingstudio.com

July 2018 News

---

The woodcarving community of young and old working together.

Welcome to Tyler.

Welcome to Rosie. She carved a flower in just two sessions.

Echo goes away to summer camp each summer. Right before she was to leave for summer camp she finished this wonderful mask.

All finished with lights.

Art finished his Armadillo mask, carved from Basswood and painted with custom made paint.

A while back woodcarver Owen brought in some scraps from a project that was completed at his woodworking job. The pieces were too small for furniture or cabinets but the woodcarvers have made lots of different projects from the wood. Robyn's Elephant takes the prize. The knot makes a perfect eye for this piece that is going to a 4 year old elephant enthusiast.

The long timers in the studio have often heard my beginning woodcarving spiel and how these skills can come in handy. Here is Ashley marking an uneven border using her pinky and ring finger as the guide. It worked great on this uneven bowl shape.

Robyn used a galvanized construction strong tie, cut it into the bottom of her abstract carving and turned two carved pieces into bookends. The metal was covered with cork and it worked to both cover the metal as well as give the bottom some non stick characteristics. Very clever.

I carved this piece a bit ago. This was carved from a large branch pruned from a tree in my friend Susan Koenig's back yard. Just last month Susan had to have the huge tree removed. The mask told me he needed to go live with Susan. You don't argue with masks when they talk to you.

Measuring in at just under 3 inches, this little guy came to me in need of a hand, two feet and a hunk of beard. Since there was no indication of just what the hand was doing I let him sit for a bit until it was clear he wanted a walking stick to hold in the hand I was going to carve. A tooth pick was just the right size.

Here he is all ready for a walk in the Black Forest.

I made this Red Rocking Horse toy for my Grand daughter. I used Blackberries, Raspberries and Blueberries to stain the Oak. It then has a coating of mineral oil and Beeswax. It went straight into her mouth as soon as she saw it.

Previously I showed four of the 8 expression masks that I commissioned Anom to carve for me. Here is #5.

I love the subtle tiger stripe grain on this one.

Great eyebrow line.

More tiger stripe and great eyebrow lines.

Sometimes there is beauty in the most unexpected places.

June 2018 News

---

Women Woodcarvers Rock!!!

Shortly after sending out my last newsletter I got an email from Anom and Dayu asking if maybe we could do a workshop in October. My answer
was yes, yes, yes, absolutely yes. It pays to keep asking. Yipee!!!!

Welcome to new Grapes and Leaves Grads. Khae and Lina enjoyed some time away from family and carved some beautiful Grapes and Leaves.

Shaun had some time before starting a guitar building class and wanted some woodcarving experience to add to his skill set.

Dalia and Tarek had a private lesson and powered through the flower carving in just two hours.

Ashly come to woodcarving with a very special request. Her seventh grade woodshop teacher told her she didn't have enough time to start a bowl in class. She was sure she could so came to prove him wrong. She really was a super focused carver. She carved this Camphor bowl in less than two weeks. What a great lesson for all.

Maisie carved and wood burned this walnut name plaque for her desk.

My niece and fellow woodcarver Camille and I worked together on hollowing out her pine panther carving. We took a chainsaw and cut cross hatched grooves into the underside. She was then able to remove lots of bulk and weight from the piece. This was in preparation to packing up her studio and house to move back to Michigan.

The Randall Kids carving class with a wooden hat, carved snail, rattlesnake and Mask with no hair.

Randall Kids carving carved box, open and closed, Mask with flower hair and closeup of pistachio shell rattles for snake.

Andrew, from the Randall Kids carving class, was frustrated about all the sanding to be done on his bowl. It was carved from sugar Pine. When he finally started to see the beautiful finish start to emerge on the bowl he got excited.

Not woodcarving but one of the carvers published this wonderful cookbook. So proud of Laura.

We had a studio visit from Laura McLively and her husband and baby. She picked up a Teak bowl that she carved before she started working on her book "Berkeley Bowl Cookbook." Such a sweet baby and what a fabulous book.

Here is Lorraine’s piece with 5 coats of oil.

Such a beautiful patina. The grain is so rich looking.

The carving and the wood burning are done on DC Bill's Big Boot. He is doing the staining and we hope to see it in all it's glory soon.

Dave finished his parrot carved from Myrtle wood.

The Randall adult class had fun carving spoons, bowls and wooden swords.

At the Randall class learning to rough out a spoon using a small axe.

Hannah carved this Walnut stirring spoon which can also be used for pounding cabbage for sauerkraut . She left the end of the handle large and round to make this a double duty utensil.

Another wonderful visit from Harry Huck Uliasz. We have carved together for over 40 years, since we both studied with our teacher Ben Shaw. Woodcarvers make the BEST friends.

May 2018 News

---

Kyle finished his grapes and leaves, Congratulations.

Owen finished his Doggie portrait cane head. Nice job.

Maize finished this ash mallet carved from a baseball bat blank. It is custom fit to her hand.

I had a good laugh when Echo came to class and pulled a "Lorraine" This is something made famous among the carvers from the more than once Lorraine has come to class needing to make a present for that afternoon. Echo was on her way to her good friends birthday party. She told me they always get each other a serious present and one that is funny. Echo made this "No meat or fish" sign for her Vegetarian friend.

After one year of carving, Lorraine is putting the first coat of finish on her elm carving of Mother Magdalen

Here she is after coat #1. Also notice my eight new emotion masks carved by Anom, hanging between the windows.

Last month was the start of a new series of classes at the Randall Museum newly renovated shop space. It is a gorgeous new space for wood carving.

Two of the young carvers from the Randall class show off their newly completed owl and turtle sculptures.

I had a repair job where I had to replace part of a chair rail. It was difficult since the piece was totally gone. It was challenging to flip the design.

The Woodworker that I did the carving for did a wonderful job finishing the chair. I was amazed at how good it looked.

I was so delighted to get these emotion masks from Anom. What a great reference on facial emotions.

This is one of my favorites. Love the lips.

Peaceful Expression.

The grain is so great on this one. I have eight in all.

March 2018 News

---

Welcome to Grapes and Leaves Graduate, Kate.

Doug brought in his completed figure doing yoga carved from Myrtle.

Here is another view of Doug's piece. My favorite part is the yin-
yang base of two contrasting woods.

Echo carved this deep relief (about 5/8" deep) of an alpaca from poplar.

Another completed project from Echo.

Maize completed her Butternut and basswood "Book" Box.

Here is the Randall kids class with their finished pieces.

A fun project I am working on for myself is using this really old piece of Curly Redwood.

Step one is to saw a 1 1/4" piece off the end.

Step two is to split 3/16" from the cut strip. I used my Balinese hatchet as a wedge to split the pieces. Because the gain is so curly the grain splits into these beautiful curvy squares.

Each of the pieces will yield 25-30 squares.

I used my NWCoast Crooked knife to smooth the surface. The color and grain are just beautiful. Now that all the pieces are smoothed I now need to figure how to attach them to each other.

I finally completed this Angel Portrait. I started this piece about 25 years ago. It is a portrait of my daughter Sara when she was about 7 or 8 years old. It has lived in the studio and in my office for years at the 75% completed stage. When Sara had her daughter I decided that it needed to be 100% completed and live with them. I did the final clean up, sanding and detail work. The wood is basswood and I decided to just use a wax finish so as to not darken the wood. There is a small amount of oil pencil color added and very thin lines of gold paint underneath each wing feather to give the wings a feeling of lightness.

February 2018 News

Jim and Josey finished Grapes and Leaves.  This is part one of a school project that Josey is working on for school.  Part two is a scale model carving of a totem pole.  

Alex finished this low relief carving from basswood.  The letters are wood-burned.  

Martha has finished 2 ash mallets and is now working on spoons and more spoons.  

So here are some more of Martha's spoons.  The tiny spoon is just barely two inches long.  She is experimenting with size, shape, function and wood.  

Rise carved several spoons for the holiday season.  Here is a beautiful walnut serving spoon.  Is it a utensil or is it sculpture?  Maybe both.  

My Wednesday Randall class finished their first project.  This is the first time that I have taught beginners and not had them carve the infamous Grapes and Leaves.  This is a spoon and bowl carving class and I had to figure out how to teach the basics in a modified format.  My solution was to have each one carve a copy of my Grape rounding sample that I use for the grapes and leaves students.  I am reserving judgement on how well this will work.   

Another Randall cherry wood spoon from the past. 

Mahogany spoon from a past Randall Kid's class.
 

A trip down Memory Lane: Echo wood-burning the final touches on her spoon that she carved for her mother about two years ago.  

Another past spoon.  Carved by Simon. 

This is a sign commission that is for a neighbor.  I was so happy that I was able to use some scrap that I got from the Cabinet shop.  It was old growth redwood shiplap siding.  Beautiful tight vertical grain. Since it was only a scant 3/4" I used an second piece to cut out and do a "plant-on" floral carving.  The piece was originally designed to have the flowers pointing up.  When it was all done I thought it looked better with the flowers pointing down.  

Had a commission piece for a carved bear.  Here are some process pics of the Claro Walnut Bear

Here he is all done.  Note to self: "When you know the price they want to pay is too low , just say NO."  

January 2018 News

The big news for me is that I became a Grandma. Welcome to Aleta Marie.

I wanted to pass on this Holiday greeting from our friend and fellow woodcarver, Anom and his family.

Grapes and Leaves Graduate Martha did a stunning job. She has already started her second project, an ash mallet. The difference between the woods is like night and day. Basswood is soft and almost creamy in texture when cut with sharp tools. The ash is a ring porous wood that is tough and stringy.

Every year Doug has been carving his wife a three dimensional wood Christmas card. This year it was influenced by their vacation to Japan.

Robyn is finally happy with her Bear carving. It took a couple of tries and she was not smiling when she first started carving the bear in what turned out to be a rather punky piece of sugar pine. After ditching the pine she got some Redwood which, although hard to carve, turned out really great. The Redwood had pretty open growth rings and was dry so she is on coat # 12 of Watco and he is still sucking it up.

Good Job Amelia! The raised letters on this complicated character were extremely difficult to carve.

Amelia's little sister Katherina joined us and carved a fish and then added the most glorious colors.

Sarah came to get some help with her woodcarving. She is an artist and taught herself to carve. She has a great eye and is totally fearless but was frustrated with some of her results. We worked together and she got through most of the steps of the Grapes and Leaves project. I was so pleased that she felt like she learned a lot from the project. Hopefully she will get to join us again but it is a long trip from Alaska.

Maize is starting her third project. This one is a Book Box. The cover and spine are out of Butternut and the "pages" are out of Basswood. The pieces are all cut and there is a rather complicated series of steps to glue all the pieces together. Some pieces have glue and some don't in order for the box to work. Thank goodness Maize is a bright and attentive woodcarver because she caught me right before I was going to glue the wrong piece.

Randall finished his dog portrait out of Cypress. The grain does a nice thing over the back and haunches.

The San Francisco group finished up some nice pieces.

Conor finished another tiny critter. Carved, painted and wood burned basswood.

This was a repair job I did last month. The carving was from Brazil and a piece broke off and they didn't have the piece. The top left shows where the damage was and the piece missing. The top right shows the edge and the reason that it broke. The carving was from one piece of wood and the light area was the sap wood. The sapwood had beetle damage. From the surface there was only a couple of tiny holes but the edge shows the channels that the bugs chewed. That was probably the reason the piece broke there. The bottom two pictures show the repair. I used butternut to try and match the color and texture of the wood, although it is softer than the original wood. The patch and seam show on the back but I was able to match the design and wood burning pretty closely on the front. I am hoping that with aging the color will get more yellow and darker and will be even closer than it is now.

November 2017 News

Welcome to Memo and Alex, new Grapes and Leaves Grads.

Welcome to Arielle and Daniel

Rise finished this piece a bit ago as a gift for her sister. The carving has been gifted and we can share it now. The low relief horse head is carved from a beautiful piece of ripple grain basswood.

Owen finished his basswood Greenman face. The piece of wood was 4" thick, allowing for the beautiful deep relief of the overlapping leaves.

Art, part of our regular Thursday morning gang, finished this great piece This friendly elephant ives on the wall in his garage to keep his reusable grocery bags ready for the next grocery trip. This piece is basswood painted with acrylic paint.

Daniel, after finishing his Grapes and Leaves, carved this snake wrapped walking stick. It is carved from Jelutong and the snake scales are punched with a large 1/2" metal letter "D" stamp. It makes a great scaly snake skin texture.

Bradley finished this Intarsia Unicorn made from basswood and redwood with wood burned and carved details.

The San Francisco class through the Randall Museum is over half way done. The kids class finished their first project and are now all working away at diverse second projects. We have magic wand, soccer ball, relief carved tree, opticall illusion relief and and abstract being worked on.

The Randall adult class finished their Grapes and Leaves and are well into their second projects.

The next generation of woodcarvers hard at work. Echo designed, carved, woodburned and painted this wonderful low relief carving of Persephone for her little sister, Persephone's birthday. Conor is learning an advanced carving technique for his carved prehistoric fish. He did a lovely small texture and woodburned the eyes for his tiny critter ( the name of which I can't even pronounce let alone remember.)

Welcome to Randall and Maize. What a wonderful way for a father and daughter to spend a Saturday afternoon.

More of the younger generation of carvers, hard at work. Maisie is using the elbow clamp technique for sanding the outside of her Alaska Yellow cedar bowl. Bella is wrapped up with riffling her Jelutong Cat sculpture.

I had a couple of interesting commissions in the last few months. This one although small was very difficult. It involved wood burning a customer requested Quote and specific font on the lid of a treasured wooden burl box. The whole lid was only 1 1/2" by 3 1/2". It was very, very challenging.

The second piece, also lettering, was an inscription carved on the back of a teak bench. Lots of things made this one hard. It was a birthday present with a time deadline, there was a shipping company hold up and numerous problems just getting the piece to me, then rush carving, and rush pick up but in the end it all came together. When the customer picked it up they told me the story of "Multa Amoris." The bench was for their mother's birthday. The saying was what their father signed on all of his letters. The father had recently died so it was somewhat of a memorial. I was so glad that it worked out well in the end.

Another commission that I just finished was this stand for this lovely vintage mannequin head. Following are some pictures of the process.

Step one was to work with the client to come up with a design. This was done with a small clay maquette (the model shows up in a later picture.) The next step is to find wood that will work. Here is some of the Jelutong that I got from the pattern maker shop last year.

The base of the head needed to seat closely to the top of the stand. There is a 5/8" steel rod that comes out of the bottom of the head. I used a hand plane to get the fit as close as possible.

Time to glue the two pieces of wood together. Since they were both oversized I only needed to have a good fairly tight joint, the position only needed to be "sorta" close. I used inner tube stretched over the top to apply even pressure.

When the glue was dry it was outside to remove massive amounts of wood with the angle grinder and a very coarse 4 1/2 " Kutzall dish wheel. It made Lots of dust and was difficult to control but I did it. The finer details and smoothing were done with my Balinese tools and Italian riflers.

The roughed out piece sat next to the maquette where I could look at it for several days. I sent off pictures to the client and we both agreed that it was too tall. So back to the shop to cut 2 1/2" off the bottom and do some other small adjustments. Then the final filling and sanding and prepping for the client to have it painted.

July 2017 News

Welcome to some of the new Grapes and Leaves grads.

Lorraine finished this piece.  The story behind this one is that the director of the hospital where the large "St. Clare Healing a Child" lives liked it so much he kept it in his office.  When he retired Lorraine carve this for him as his own piece.  Now the original piece can be in an area where everyone can enjoy it.

Then she starts another one.  Lorraine got this piece of Elm that was from one of my teacher's students. It  must be 35 years old and there was still a drawing that Ben Shaw had sketched out for his student John.  It is hard, hard, hard and beautiful. 

Doug made a trip to Japan and brought back this beautiful carving.  It is so delicate and beautiful.  A masterful combination of tool marks and detail.  

Twiggy joined us from the Randall Museum class.  She carved her Grapes and Leaves and then carved this beautiful mask.  it was her very first Mask and she did a wonderful job of adding texture (gun checkering tools) and color.  

Another Randall Museum class project.  This is a lovely Alder bowl.  

Elena finished her cat carving.  

Joy finished her Mermaid mask carved in Basswood.  She used some stone spheres for the eyes so when it is held up to the light they have a soft glow.  She was inspired with the color and it is hard to even tell this is a wood piece.  It has a look of ancient metal.  

Radhika  loved carving this plum abstract so much that when she finished she started a second one that is way bigger.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.  

Rise carved this staff from Birch.  She left some of the bark on as random rings.  The top and bottom were capped with copper and she added occasional "dots" of copper by drilling and inserting heavy copper  wire.  

Dave just finished his Spruce fish.  Not too long ago this was a log he brought into the studio.  It is a lovely piece.  

Dave just finished his Spruce fish.  Not too long ago this was a log he brought into the studio.  It is a lovely piece.  

Not all carving are big.  Michael brought in this sweet foot that he is carving.  

I did a little bit of playing around.  I carved this light sconce from Jelutong and added the glass eyes that were left over from the Treeman project.  This piece now lives in my bathroom and greets me every morning reminding me to carve for fun as much as possible.  

With all of the going through "stuff" it brings up old memories. I have been remembering my teacher, Ben Shaw.  He was a remarkable man.  

Part of dealing with ending my cabinetmaking business is having to deal with things that I stored at the cabinet shop.  One of them is a teak coffee table that I made 35 years ago when I worked at the Teak Hot Tub factory.  It was well used with rings, stains and scratches but the wood underneath was beautiful.  

After spending the weekend sanding and scraping the Teak coffee table now has a new life as a desk top. 

Another end of an era project.  This gorgeous 52" x 58" x 2.5" piece of old growth  ripple grain Redwood used to be a dusty, scratched lunch room table at the cabinet shop.  After lots of sanding and scraping it now has a new life as my headboard.  Makes me smile.  

April 2017 News

Week one of Bali Mask Carving and I had finished one mask, that is often referred to as instructor assisted.  Anom would show me the step by doing it on one side and I would try to replicate it on the other side.  The smiling face mask was my second mask.  The bottom right is what Anom was working on that first week.  

This marking tool was one that Anom Inherited from his grandfather.  It is basically a notched square with the three dimensions needed for cutting out blanks for a mask.  Almost all masks that are worn use these proportions with slight variations if you would want an especially long nose or extra on top for some sort of hair.   

A few days after I got there Anom had his friend come over and cut mask blanks from a freshly cut Pule tree that had fallen in a local temple.  The tree had just come down about 2 weeks before I got there.  His friend was incredibly skilled with the chainsaw.  You can see the marking square in his hand.  After cutting the logs into disks of the correct length the two of them figured out how to get the maximum number of blanks from each round.  There ended up with almost no waste and the corner of the pie shaped piece was often saved for ears.  

The next morning I arrived to this beautiful stack of mask blanks waiting for carving.  Because of the careful planning there was almost no waste.  

I was introduced to a couple of brand new tools.  In the past carving at the weekend workshops Anom has brought us roughed out blanks.  Now I got to use the layout tool, a large Balinese hatchet and an ax to try to get the piece of wood to that same roughed out state.  So I spent about 8+ hours learning, or trying to learn to use these new tools.  It was very humbling to say the least.  It has also renewed my empathy level for new woodcarvers as well. 

After roughing out a blank with some Pule wood that was drier, I got to try the fresh cut wood.  Maybe I was just nervous starting on such a special piece of wood, but I swear the wood was vibrating.  It was exhausting work but what a feeling of accomplishment just to get it to this point.  

I should know this by now: Don't temp the Gods!  Working away on my smiling faced mask and having lovely conversations with Anom on teaching, family, state of the world, etc. Foolish me I say "I have never carved though the front of a mask"  The Gods smacked me down for my smug remark.  I held the mask up to the light and I had literally come paper thin in one spot.  You could probably read through the wood it was so thin.  Humbling.  

Most  days at the hot part of the day I would put water on my head and lay on the cool tile floor to cool down.  After my near disaster I spent extra time looking at these beautiful carvings.  

Week one mask. Pule wood (some of the older, drier wood) The dark marks under the eyes are pitch pockets.  I love where they ended up but had nothing to do with that.  We call that lucky carving.  Photo by P. Walton

Week one smiling mask. Pule wood (freshly cut Pule wood, repaired "almost" carve through )  Photo by P. Walton

Week two it was on to doing all the steps myself and using a new wood, Hibiscus.  It was much harder and denser than the Pule but wonderful to carve since it has beautiful colors that are especially vivid when first cut.  The piece of wood was about four finger longer than the normal mask length and I choose to leave that so that I could use it for "hair." 

It was so fun carving the Hibiscus wood.  I never knew what would surface as I carved.  The coloring was marbled and not like any wood I have ever carved before.  Carving the wood wet is such a different way of working.  

By the end of the week the Hibiscus was about 75% done.  I have continued working on it since my return.  Photos by P. Walton

Anom not only is a fabulous carver and teacher he is also a community leader.  Here he is preparing offerings for families that are about to start building.  He carefully inscribes text and images on various objects that will go at the base of the building.  
 

The doors to my room. Each set of doors in the building were carved with similar but individual floral designs.   Everywhere there was such beauty.  

My alarm clock, 5 year old Gustu.  Every morning I would hear the doors lightly rattle and this little voice calling " Sheri, Sheri are you awake?"  In the evening I would ask what he learned at school and he would proudly say "Transportation"  He also shared his cold with me.  

The hardest thing for me was the traffic.  I have never seen so many scooters.  They drive on the opposite side of the street and pedestrians have no right of way.  I couldn't tell what the rules of the road were but it all seemed to somehow work.  

My most gracious hosts, Anom and Dayu.  I was treated so well.  

I stayed with Dayu's mother just around the corner from where I was working.  She was an amazing cook and made sure I had breakfast and dinner.  She spent many hours of the day making some of the leaf baskets for the daily offerings.  I loved watching her make them.  There was not a wasted movement.  

Here is the last day carving.  Ketut, in the background, sands many of Anom's mask's.  Some of you have heard my story of Made, the lovely gentleman that packed up my tools and masks for my return home.  He carefully packed everything and did a wonderful job.  Anom was on the phone when he was done so I asked him if I could give him something for his work.  He really spoke no English  so I reached into my wallet and handed him a bill.  He was ever so gracious and motioned thank you with a big smile.  Later that night since I had a hard time with converting rupiahs I checked my phone app and to my horror found that I had given him a 14 cent tip.  Luckily I saw him the next day and was able to give him a more appropriate tip.  We both had a good laugh about it.   

I carved next to this wonderful stone carving everyday.  

Tool sharpening in Bali is very different than what we do here.  It seems as if the stones are sort of in between oil stones and water stones. They are softer than oil stones but used with water.  There is no slurry from the stone like when you use a water stone.   

Can't wait to go back.  

February 2017 News

I am heading off to Bali to be a carving student with Mask carver  IDA BAGUS ANOM SURYAWAN.  Upper left mask is a traditional Balinese mask by Anom.  Below that is my first Bali Style mask that I did with some assistance from Anom.  The other two are Bali style masks that I did on my own.  I have no idea what I will be carving while I am in Bali.  Maybe it will be more of the traditional style and maybe more Sheri style.  

One of my favorite teaching assignments is to teach multi generations.  In January Dave's wife, daughter and several female family members made the trip to DC to join the Women's march after the inauguration.  While the Women folk were off marching Dave and his son Chris and Grandson Zachary joined him for the day carving.  I loved having the family carving together.

Welcome to new Grapes and Leaves graduate, Owen.   

Lee's look of surprise is perhaps because she thought she would never finish the Grapes and Leaves. She did and it looks good.  

Sasha finished his grapes and leaves in two weeks.  He is a natural at carving.  

Devon made this case in a local makers' workshop but did a massive amount of wood-burning in the carving studio.  He also made a beautiful ribbon maple handle.  

The kids class at the Randall After school class are an amazing bunch this time.  They all finished their flower carving and are carving bowls, spoons, sporks and fish.  

Tim is carving fish for a fish rattle.  Knife work is a more advanced skill and he is handling it like a pro.  

Ronan is a returning student at the Randall Kids carving class and has been working really hard on his totem/Tiki pole.  I am so proud of how his skill level has just continued to increase.  Good Job! It is a really challenging project.  

More wood-burning by Echo. 

I was asked to carve letters to go above the plaque I carved last year.  It was fun to revisit an old piece and see that it was doing okay.  

I have been doing several rush jobs for some fraternity groups.  It is always challenging and fun.   You should have seen me flipping the 4'x8' sheets of plywood around on my bench and I only cut into the bench once.  

Now picture me doing this in a lovely tropical setting.  I'm off to carve in Bali for 2 weeks. 

Remembering a Special Woodcarver

 Erin Tucker with a hand carved bowl, colored as was her style in the brightest colors she could find. On October 11, 2016 Erin went to "carve with the Angels"  

Erin had her very own style which always included beautiful colors and her unique interpretation of the ordinary which always came out looking extraordinary. 

Her work was always colorful and full of joy.    

October 2017 News

Welcome to new Grapes and Leaves graduate, Ray.  

Although Catherine finished this box last month it had to wait for the newsletter since it was an anniversary gift for her sweetie, Erik.  This was a hand carved box from a piece of Plum wood.  The top was sliced off and the bark remained.  A lovely contrast to the highly polished woodgrain.  

Echo's little sister,  5 and 3/4 year old Sephy, finished her flower.  She didn't let a broken arm keep her from finishing.  

Echo carved and colored this deep relief Skunk.  She did a great job coloring the piece to really accentuate the the deep carving.  

Art for the past 4 years has hand made Christmas ornaments for his grandkids.  This years carved and painted angels turned out really nice.  They are not overly detailed or carved and have a wonderful folk "Art" feel.  Lucky Grandkids.  

I was driving a few days back and saw a sign saying Free Firewood.  You know what that means to a woodcarver.  I picked up this piece of Liquid Amber. It is a section of the trunk where several large branches originate. I am hoping there will be some interesting grain.