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."

MO' STUFF

THE HAND

Please! No silly, gotta' hand it to you -- you're really handy!, etc. -- puns about this carving. I admit that it's weird, but spare me the puns.

 So that you know, almost everything I've carved so far has been out of basswood. Jan and I, while driving around in the new neighborhoods to the north of us, stopped at a construction site and I begged a few pieces of construction grade 2"x6" studs, thinking that I'd like to try my hand at another wood. (Run on sentence?) Anywho, the worker who was there said, "Sure, help yourself." So I brought home a few short pieces.

Last week, I finally decided to *try my hand" at carving in one of the pieces. I sharpened a v gouge to within an inch of it's life, traced the outline of my left hand onto the wood, and tried to make a cut.  I emphasize tried. I hardly made a dent in the wood. I decided that I wasn't going to get anywhere with my knives, so I transferred the work site to the garage where my power carving tool is. And, away I went -- Geez! What a mess!

I took the project - mid carving - down to Treeline in south Provo, where I have been buying my tools and wood and showed the grand experiment to the owner, Brian. His first comment was, "That's Douglas Fir. It's a hardwood. It's going to take you a while to finish that if you continue." Joy... He's the expert at power carving. He recommended one more cutting bit for my project. It can remove quite a bit of wood in a hurry, but it leaves a smoother finish. It also works well at rounding off corners.

After all the cutting, gluing on a small piece, adding a small application of wood putty (As you can see, I'm not a "purist" when it comes to wood carving) I painted and stained the surface of the wood and then applied a couple of coats of polyurethane.

And, I know, it looks weird.   Just consider the source...

As you can see there is some writing at the top. It says "Kennzeichnis eines bundnis." The statement refers to the ring on my hand and you'll have to break out your German dictionary for a translation. For the rest you won't need a dictionary.

EVEN MO' STUFF!

 I altered the handle of my walking cane last week, too. (Yes, cane... - my lower back has more problems than Carter's has Little Liver Pills.) The handle looked like the head of one of the battle droids from Star Wars when they fought on Naboo. Now, instead of a droid head, it looks "bearish" - no particular species intended. However, one of our neighbors said it reminded him of a Polar Bear. If you must know, it's a Teddy Bear.

This cane was made and given to me by Karl Larsen from Spanish Fork. It's from one of his apple trees (Delicious). We work together at the Provo temple. He grew up in Roosevelt and his father was a MD there. He's related to the Calders', Hackings, and a couple of other families in Vernal. I know many of his relatives in the Maeser area. Also, He and his wife were in the same ward with my brother, Aaron and family years ago. It's like old home week every week at the temple.

AND, LAST LEE

I'm pretty sure that I had a picture of this in an unfinished state in the last post. It has special significance to me - something that only my family would understand - so I won't go there. However, it's  strange what happens in the wee hours of the morning while carving in the rocking chair in the living room.