Horse Relief

[Music] tools needed for this project are three chisels this is a sixty degree v-tool that is about a quarter inch wide this is a fishtail gouge it doesn't need to be a fishtail that's the enlarging as it gets to the end it's a half inch wide it's a number three sweep this one is about three quarter inches wide it's a number five sweep anything close to this will work for the project basswood it measures five and three quarters by seven and one quarter it's three quarters of an inch thick a mallet if you need it for control or for power when you're doing a relief carving your I emphasize the grain so you can see if we're going to be carving from this side so it's best to carve from the heart side where the heart of the log would be here and the grain is running this way you do that to get the least amount of warpage if you were to carve on the other side it would tend to warp more as it relieves the stress in the wood we've already got the photograph of the horse and from the photograph I traced a pattern the pattern is drawn to size what the trends for that pattern we're going to use carbon paper and I like the true carbon paper not the greased paper the carbon paper is put on to the wood and then the pattern on top of that and just trace around the pattern to transfer it to the wood so we're transferring the pattern to the wood I've got the carbon paper underneath the pattern and I'm just tracing over the pattern here the pattern is drawn onto the wood we're gonna start taking the background down so we're going to remove all the backgrounds so the Horsehead is raised we're going to be using two tools for that one is a V tool and that V tool is about a quarter inch it's a 60-degree angle and this is the shape of it and the other tool we're going to be using is a gouge and the gouge is about a 5/8 chisel that is a number five sweep this radius is number five so these are this is the profile of the two chisels we're going to be using what how we're going to be using them is we're taking the V tool and we are going to make the stop cut the stop cut we're going to follow along the lines making a cut here so we can remove the background without disturbing the course itself the line that we have here just take and make several cuts stop cuts then we take the chisel number five sweep chisel and we cut down to almost to the bottom of the stop cut we want to make that background deeper so I go with the V tool again and make that stop cut deeper then I go with the chisel the number five sweep and see what happened here I was going a little deeper than the stop cut and it wasn't chip was hanging on so you don't want to go quite as deep as your stop cut that keeps the background and your carving clean otherwise if you go deeper than your stop your carving starts getting fibers all over it notice the direction that we're going we're going in the direction where we are compressing the grain so it's like the paintbrush example where the fibers in the wood are like bristles on the paintbrush and you get a smoother cut if you're going in this direction because you're compressing the bristles where if I was to make the stop cut in this direction I would be pulling those bristles out so if I'm coming down in this direction it would want to split into the horse head notice in this direction coming underneath here the direction I'm going I'm still compressing the fibers in if I was to come up in this direction it would be pulling the fibers away so it's important when you're making the stop cut to follow the grain in the right direction now you notice when I'm cutting the making these stop cuts I'm not following the lines very close I can always fine tune that and get up closer to the line when I get closer to depth now what I'm taking the background away I'm coming in the opposite direction the opposite direction from when I did the stop cut and in doing so that makes this side smooth so we're going to keep repeating this process of doing the stop cut and going with the number-5 gouge until we get down about halfway through the wood that will make that horse head stand out really nice [Music] another tool that we can use is a mallet if you don't have the hand strength or the wood is too hard to push the chisel through by hand a mallet is used for power it's also used for control when you're in there making those little delicate cuts the mallet has a lot of control in doing so so I want to also explain about the tool holder this pegboard is very handy for holding the piece the piece is just sitting on pigs are sitting down between the pegs onto the pegboard so you can take the piece off look at it clean it up and then just put it back into place and it stays in place pretty nice because you're only pushing down or back and forth and it holds it very well so these holes are drilled at random it's just you put the wooden pegs in so the when the chisel if it hits the peg it doesn't hurt the chisel it's a very useful tool in the holding it we don't want to lose the peak of that ear and if we were to follow in the right direction with the grain to make the nice smooth cut compressing the fibers we might because the grains go in this way we might lose the end that might break off so we make an exception in this case we come down with the V tool and we're cutting down the wrong direction onto the grain but we're taking very light cuts we're doing that into the strength of that ear so we don't lose the tip of it when you have a delicate area like that it's important to do that this part here I did go in the right direction with the grain all the way up because this side is almost parallel with the grain going here so there was no danger of losing the tip of this one but this one here the grain I could easily pop that off the other thing to be mindful of is to make sure your stop cuts as you're going deeper are remain vertical if they become widened out or if you undercut it then when you start rounding off the horse you're going to start it'll be changing size so this drawing that we did is the size that it's supposed to be right down where it meets the background so that is important to keep the things straight some of the options we have is to make this background completely flat or to dish it in this case here I decided that I'm going to dish it down to the horse head so it's going to be on the outside edge the original thickness in most cases now here I had to drop it down because I wanted the horse neck to stick out further but as you go down towards the horse head it's getting deeper right next to the horse head in most of these cases it's going to be about half of the wood thickness there are two different ways that you can do stop cuts the V tool is what we've been using and the other method is a plunge cut to where you can take and drive the chisel down straight right on the line the thing you need to watch what the plunge cut is to keep a constant depth if you take the cut down below where your background is going to be then that will create a line so the plunge cut normally requires more clean up unless really able to stop that plunge right there at the depth that you're trying to achieve the background we've dished down for several reasons there's many different techniques you can use for the background different textures and flat we decide to dish it there's less wood to remove it also makes it more interesting because it's not all at the same level and also the fact that it's deeper down at the object it kind of draws attention to the object also there's more strength it's thicker out at the edges so it's less likely to warp we're going to start carving the horse we're going to use the same v tool and the same chisel number 5 chisel but I'm adding to it I a number 3 sweep number 3 sweep is almost straight across it has a little bit of a curve on it it's a fishtail because it comes on out and it's about three-quarters of an inch wide I'm using it as a little flat or tool to help do the rounding notice the direction I'm going on the grain is still for that same reason to compress the fibers but before I get too far down here and lose my drawing I'm going to put in the lines for the hair the mane always be mindful of the direction of the grain I'm not going right up to my lines we'll leave them in there a little bit the mane doesn't really stick out from the neck that much so I don't need to make these stop cuts that thick now I'm just going to round everything down up here where the ear is I'm going to take that v tool and make that stop cut so I can round that head off and still keep that ear sticking out then I'll take this number three fish tail now round is just about down to the tips of the hair and right now I'm not going to put the texture out now working on the underside of the neck there's a little jaw lying grab a pencil and put that in this here little area here I probably should have had it in the pattern so I'm going to run the V tool down there and I will round the bottom side of the neck [Music] the first tool is pretty nice for getting in smaller areas in between where these stop cuts were for the part of the main rounding it almost all the way down to the background leaving just a little straight portion to cast a little harder shadow so to make it stand out from the background a little bit now this part of the head also around that coming around here the underside and then the jaw sticks out a little bit further here [Music] [Music] this kind of finish off this neck a little bit so I don't have any flat spots in looking at the anatomy of the Horsehead its kind of rounded we see some features right in here that I is going to stick out and the hill is going to stick a little bit that ear will be lower than this year this year will be right out of that upper limit so if we start off by taking the V tool so we can lower that area up here so the ear is going to be the lowest then this here and then that other ear towards the front the make a stop cut right at the bottom of this ear and the head is going to be the front of the head slope that way so I'm going to again take this fish tail number three chisel and start sloping that head that way this eye is going to stick out so I'm gonna go down to the bottom of that stop refer back to the photograph make sure you get the rest of these features there's a little bit of a indentation right in here along the nose that will follow this line here and before we slope the nose down rounded around a little bit let's dig in for the nostril the nostril otherwise if we round it over first we'll lose our drawing for the nostril so let's go in a little bit deeper on this nostril and then we'll round that over a little bit I'm just going to kick the corner of my fish till my reason why I like that fish tail and make the feature on that nostril a little bit now if we look at the photograph again we can see the top of the eye sticks out the underside of the eye is in so that is really sloping in so let's take and make a stop cut on the underside of the eye like that and I'm going to make that stop cut fairly deep then I'm going to slope that I down I'm not worried about losing my drawing at this point because I can see the top of it right there and now because the bottom of that eye we've got the eye something but we need to take up this channel here so carve that channel right down to the bottom of that stop cut at the bottom of the eye now to finish that off I've got it rising here we need to come straight out so I'm not deep enough right at this point here I'm gonna make that little deeper and I'm not going to worry about this lying here I'm going to redraw that the nose is kind of flat on the horse so I'm going to get that flatness going right up past the eye there and part of the forehead that just all slopes right down real nice when you run your hand on the nose of a horse like that you'll feel that is this it's not really flat but there's a flatness to that nose and now we'll just work on the side of the nose here so I'm going to go back now with this number 5 gouge that we used on background and I'm going to run that up alongside the nose here right here just to get some rounding going on there now this hair that's coming between the ears I'll slope that down to that other ear we see that we have the structure of the eye a little bit deeper underneath there but we need to make a line here we need to cup the ears out a little bit around the mouth the hair detail so for that we're going to use the V tool and just making a slight cut here above the eye now here I'm not worried about direction because I'm going cross-grain and I could go either direction coming down on the ear I will probably come down in this direction is safer because if I was to go up I would take the tip of the ear off I think so just to be safer I will come down in this direction here and that will make the cut part of the ear also in the front of this ear and because that ear is on the other side of the head I'm lowering it down because the top part of the ear has to be lowered also here on the mouth and then some of the detail for the hair and they'll make straight lines because straight lines are boring so just a nice slight ass coming off the neck of the horse here now don't make a v-line for every part every strand of hair because that wouldn't look right so I'm making a couple heavy ones and then I'm going to take the fishtail gouge and I'm going to make some structure so it's not all at the same level so I'm going to make clumps of hair that will begin to make it a little bit more interesting then this ear needs to be down a little bit lower and I saw that it was digging in so I'm going to go up straight up on it I have to make the I didn't make the V tool columns deep enough here so I'm going to drop that down a little bit more on the ear like that in the back of this year to be around it a little bit and then this part of the ear needs to be lowered a little bit to get a little bit of a slant now I can take off some of my construction lines that I had there's some flat area in here so I'm just going to round that and smooth that down now I think perhaps if I move the light around a little bit it'll give you throw some shadows on this area and you'll be able to see it a little bit better all that remains is just a little cleaning up if you look at the nose here and you look at the reference that nose Ridge is up a little bit higher so I'm going to move that up a little bit more so just keep checking back to your reference photos the background can be treated in several different ways you can make the background rough that will make clothing stand out a little bit more you know some sort of a texture in the background I'm going to choose to leave it smooth to smooth it off using the number-3 gouge number three gouge is quite flat so I'm just going to go and just smooth off the background edges right here where the carving meets the background can also be undercut if you take the v-- tool and slant it you'll be able to do a little undercut what that does is that cast a little harder shadow making the carving appear to be out away from the background a little bit or in this case I'm not going to undercut it I'm gonna keep straight down I can still see some blemishes right here this Gojira will probably take it out because it's down into a concave area little bit so that's what the finishing consists of just going around and smoothing things off cleaning up any whiskers that you might have left behind I'm just going to put a clear finish over the top of this it can be stained you can sand that if you want I choose not to sand most of my carvings I like to finish better without the sanding in this case I like the light color when I use an oil-based varnish on it it's a helmsman Minwax varnish and that has a little yellowing effect it's an oil-based not a water-based varnish you

Channel: The Carving Shop

Views: 34,530

Keywords: Joe Dillett, The Carving Shop, Woodcarving Instruction, Instructional Woodcarving Video, Woodcarving Classes, Educational Woodcarving Video, Traditional woodcarving, chisel carving, hand carved horse, carving a horse head, traditional carving, relief carving, woodcarving relief, relief horse head

Id: pTg4P3brC8Y

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 24 2018