Traveling Woodwose - multiple walking sticks.

This is the first post in a while. I've been busy carving and working. Watch this space for the up and coming website with a shopping basket facility.

I have a number of items ready to be blogged but thought I'd start with the range of walking sticks carved ready for my first stall at the Gloucestershire Made Market this December. Always a challenge to make sure you have enough stock when setting up a stall.

I've started carving the eyes completely hollow rather than using the stone carvers trick of a Hole in the formed eye. It's working for the smaller Woodwose on the sticks and I will see how it looks on a larger carving soon.

These three sticks are hiking sticks oiled with Tung oil and made from Hazel. Each has a different style Woodwose just below the handle area.

Not a great photo of the sticks together but shows the handles curving forward. A design for the hiking stick that ergonomically allows for more pressure to be applied to the stick thus assisting the walker up-hill particularly. The curves are all natural and the sticks harvested specifically for the curve.

The next three photos show a carving doodle undertaken as part of a commission to carve a Daemon into a twisted Ash staff. The idea being that I carve a range of Daemons, as there are a range of styles, so that the customer can decide the look and type (over a pint in the local hostelry). The doodle itself is carved in birch and oiled.

The next photo is the completed Ash staff carving.

The client chose the root and branch looking Daemon. The practice of carving a doodle stick paying off as this wasn't the original design idea discussed at our first meeting.

I haven't a full size picture but the staff itself is just under six foot tall.

I did take a range of photos as I went through the carving process. If you follow my Facebook account (Woodwose)I have posted a picture there already.

The following pictures take you from plank to finished carving.

So ends the post on the recent walking stick carvings.

Aware oiled with Tung oil and the three Hazel sticks are finished with a metal ferrule on the base. The commission is going to have a hand made Iron nail inserted to protect the tip.

Your comments are as always welcome and appreciated.

Regards

~ Dave ~