I do love this carving and to watch you work and make it look so easy makes my mouth stand open just watching you. lol I get so into a zone I almost forget to breathe. Even on something this short it is absorbing. Thanks so much for posting this. :)
Dear Chris I am starting to carve in my old age and am using olive wood as there is so much of it in Greece. Could you please give me so advice on the practicalities of using this if you have the time. Many thanks and I love your work and have many of your books.
Miloman51 - The sort of carving I do uses very bland wood, limewood or oak for example. That's because it's all about light and shadow; strong figuring would camouflage this, to say the least. Olive wood has a strong figure (pattern) and I would ever use it for this simple reason. I have seen faces carved in olive which, to me, look like they have some sort of skin disease. Having said that, the patterns in olive wood are really beautiful on wide, open surfaces such as bowls or abstract sculpture and that's where it comes into it's own. Olive is very hard and polishes well; the woods I carve are much softer and I leave the work straight from the chisel rather than sanding. This is totally my opinion of course, but I'd suggest you use your olive for simple forms, keep any details for clear areas without figuring if you can. Hope this helps!
What we need to see is what angle the tool is held at and how it is maneuvered. I think it would help a lot to have a split screen. Show the close up and a shot showing the whole tool and your hand/arm.
Bob - It's a good point and, yes of course, the more viewpoints the better. Best of all would be having you next to me at the bench! What we do do sometimes in our projects on Woodcarving Workshops is to film the repeated cuts from different angles so, although it's not a split screen, you do get different viewpoints. But not here, though, and only selectively on Woodcarving Workshops because we have a large number of videos on tool grips, handling, cuts and techniques - close ups and whole body. These form part of the Woodcarving Workshops mindset; part of the whole idea of helping people to carve well, period, rather than just focussing on a particular project. So, although it would appear so from this stand alone video, what I'm doing in would sit in the context of all the cuts and techniques we see over and over again throughout the site. Thanks for the comment and all the best with your carving.
