TIGER TIGER BURNING BRIGHT...

This large "opus" has been in the works literally for months. It started out as what should have been a small carving. But, because the wood was so blasted hard (hard basswood!?), I did the initial carving with a power carver and it turned into something about twice as large as I anticipated.

To finish it, I've had to cut a place in a larger "piece" of wood and insert the original carving into it -- easier said than done. Believe me, there have been a few times when I was ready to throw this beast into the fireplace and burn it up! But, I've been to lazy to carry it into the living room, so I have just been tossing it to the side and picking it back up again after I have finished another project.

Well, here's what it looks like after the color--- 

A FROSTY LOOKING TREE SPIRIT

This carving is appearing at our annual Christmas party on Monday inside a festively wrapped package. I hope whoever ends up with it likes it...

By the way -- the CD cover is an

ancient Herb Alpert album, in the

days before he turned into Fat Al.

HO! HO! HO!

More Santa Clauses:

 This is an ornament -- Santa on the

26th- the day after.

 This one I've posted already...

 This is Saint Nick holding a bell.

 This is "long shore-man" Santa

 And, finally, a wooden Christmas card.

MORE WHIMSEY

With both hands in bandages for the last couple of weeks (carpel tunnel surgery), carving was out of the question. The best I could do was finish a couple of projects that were gifts for grand kids. The projects were mostly paint projects.

The first was a treasure chest for Sophie, which I neglected to photograph... senioritis. Jan & I purchased the chest from Micheals - ready made...poorly made. There were a few things that needed to be fixed before painting it. Lastly I glued wooden tigers, butterflies and hearts. 

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The next was this little airplane for my oldest grandson, Ryan, who lives in Tucson. I've been fussing with this project for weeks. It's good to have it done. The mailing to Arizona occurs on Monday.

Ryan's Racer

The fuselage is made out of an Aspen 

practice stick. Hurrah for the scroller

saw.

Decals from Hobby Lobby.

The hub and prop, the copy of Ryan

with his finger in the #1 sign, and the

cap were all carved out of basswood.

9th ANNUAL WOODCARVING SHOW

Well, I kind of put my money where my mouth is, and entered the woodcarving competition at the Veteran's Memorial Building in Spanish Fork. I entered the following three pieces. And because I have been carving less than two years, my stuff went under the novice category. The carving entitled "Anna" got a third place ribbon. The other two garnered second place ribbons. Not bad for a first try.

My favorite, and the funnest carving I've ever done, is the Santa. The present and bear were carved separately and glue into his sack.

KRIS KRINGLE AND THE LADY ON THE WALL

I finished Kris Kringle (and another carving) -- they are both hanging on a wall in our home.

Kris is in my "man cave" until Christmas time:

I'll hang him on the wall near the front door as soon as it is appropriate -- which may be right after Halloween...

We have a new lady in the home. She's very quiet, is a real "block head" and has the name of Anna die Edele. Don't ask; it's a long story. But, she'll have a companion soon to hang by her. As soon as "he" is finished, I'll spill my guts.

By the way, the split down her face is the seam of two pieces of wood glued together -- which is to say that she isn't schidzophrenic.

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE FOUR BEARS

Truth be told, I'm not really a much of a bear fan. I'm more of a lions and tigers fan -- animals of the feline persuasion.  So how did I end up carving four bears, you ask. It all started with a little black bear.

BEAR NUMBER ONE

Being the parsimonious sort (I'm cheap), I glued together several scraps of wood that ended up being rectangular. For some reason, the wood suggested a sitting black bear. (Remember what I said in the preface of this blog -- wood spirits only communicate to those who are intimate with wood, and not the wood between your ears. And, this block of wood suggested what it wanted to be... Yeah, I know, I'm crazy. ) Anyway, after carving the bear, texturing the outside to look like bear fur, and painting it black, the carving declared itself to be good, so I covered it with polyurethane and set it on the table of my scroll saw to look at and moved on to other stuff.

Sometime later, number two daughter Cari called from Mesz, Az., and it sounded like she was a bit down in the dumps, so I mounted the little black guy on a stand and added the "beareth all things" scriptural phrase. I gave it to her hoping to cheer her up.

BEAR NUMBER TWO

 

In the mean time, I power carved the sleeping black bear cub for my sister in law, Maxine. I wanted her to have something a little more "artsy" than the wood spirit I did for her.

About this time, number one and three daughters found out about the bear Cari got. They hinted that they would kind of like having a carving of a bear but suggested that a Panda would do a better job of filling the bill.

BEAR NUMBER THREE

First came Sharon's (Sharebear) Panda cub holding a red ball. (That was fun to carve into the wood. Try it sometime.) This little bum took a while. I realized that I had misjudged the size of the bear and was running out of wood. So, I had to glue a couple of blocks to the bottom. Then, because it looked like the bear had been on a starvation diet, I had to glue a "slab of wood" to the back to make the bear look like he hadn't been mistreated.

BEAR NUMBER FOUR

Then came Lisa's stylized panda (which is also sitting on its tush). I had to power carve this little fatty -- large block of wood. I used the knives on the ears, eyes, nose and mouth, but the rest was done with the power carver.

Also, I'm sure that you've noticed that the snout should be larger to be a true Panda. Consider him to be a convert from a different bear religion...

Lisa didn't want me to burn a name into the wood. So, as far as I know, he's nameless.

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS HOBBY LOBBY & MICHAELS & WAL-MART & JOLENES (SORT OF)

I first started finishing stuff I was buying at the above businesses - finishing by painting and, in some case, remodeling what I purchased.

Let the journey begin:

 First came the canoes - A blue and white BYU canoe for Jake and a green and yellow UVU for Andrew.

Next came Christmas doodahs:

 that was because family, friends and neighbors needed to be plagued with something that I was producing. The Birdcage houses were filled with peanut M&Ms and placed in a small box.

Then there were projects for the Grand Kiddies:

 Bev got a water proofed ship

 Rachel and Lena received castles

 the outside of which I etched with

stone lines and then painted.

 I added a flag which is removable,

 and I replace the rinkytink door with

 a first class draw bridge whichI

painted brown.

 And, Annie got a treasure chest that

was way to big for her to tote around.

It was stuffed full of My Kitty stuff -

or whatever it's called.

Next came the need to "stretch". So I purchased some bags of basswood, found a picture of a dog sled (Iditarod Dog Race variety) and built this dog sled. It is something like 15" x 7".

Next was an outhouse for my daughter in law, Colette who graduated in statics and also worked in Denali National Park one summer at the base of Denali. The outhouse was supposedly on top of Mount Mckinley (Denali) and was being "used". Long sick pun intended. "What do you call an outhouse on the top of Denali that is being used?  A HIGH POT IN USE.  sick....

 Notice that it is a "two holer" -- the

ones we used while growing up all had two

holes as well.

Then the daughters received painted up jewelry boxes:

I made a couple of tool boxes for the knives:

and I made a few other assorted items:

But, this sort of thing, except for actually creating something quickly lost its draw. More knives, basswood, and some "how to" books were stoking my "creative juices."