Inspiration

I've not posted for a while on the blog, due mainly to not having the time, I'd rather be carving or simply just because I was running the risk of posting the same old post time after time.

I've been posting more and more carvings as they are produced on the Facebook page Woodwose Carving and Crafts simply because its quicker and takes moments to upload a photo with just a single line or a couple of words. Blogging can be a bit of a chore for me especially as I am not a practiced wordsmith.

Anyway. I decided that 2013 in line with the new Woodwose Carving website (Watch this space), where the discerning Woodwose fan can load their shopping trolly up with carvings, I would use the blog to not only post pictures of my carvings but of other carvings and sculpture that inspires me to get better in my craft.

During 2012 I started a Pinterest account off and I'm constantly finding images on there that are truly inspirational.

So I thought I would kick start 2013 with images of things that I haven't carved but that I would love to have the skill to do. Where possible I will credit the carving so you can go see for yourself. Unfortunately that's not always possible but whatever happens at no point will I deliberately pass off anyone else's work as my own.

If you recognise a carving I would ask that you post a comment crediting the work and a link for future readers.

This old guy was for sale at a fair or show and I captured him on my phone. Don't know the artist but its likely that is was imported from abroad. Unfortunately the carver was probably paid pennies to create it for the western market.

I love his look

A beautiful carving image that I found on Pinterest but with no accreditation to the carver. It's a beautiful piece and a picture I look at often. I have since discovered its carved by Ian Norbury www.iannorbury.com

An image I got from a random Google image search back in 2008 when I started looking for inspiration. It's not carved but looks cast. It's a beautiful piece.

This image started it all off in 2008. I came across this image and decided I wanted to try to create something like this, so I picked up a piece of wood and started carving. Now I wonder what on earth I did with my time of an evening when I didn't carve.

All of these photos again were taken from the Internet and I used them as tools, inspiration, training aids to help me carve features. I download images just for one particular aspect of detail like the nose or eye or how a wrinkle is carved. For many its how the pupil has been depicted and more recently the hair.

This one is a Russian carving and a carving I want to see in the flesh so to speak. I just love the feel of this one....... It's almost that the carver hints at aspects of the carving making it more detailed



This is a favourite of mine.

All carvings that I've spent time exploring technically to try to improve my skills through imitation before adapting a style to fit how I want to carve.

Technically this carving is just superb. I look at this and it reminds me of a stone sculpture of the Veiled Virgin I saw in the flesh at Chatsworth House of a face under a veil and my goodness I would swear I could see the face through the veil.

This like the Veiled Virgin at Chatsworth has a brilliance that I can only aspire to have.

This is the stone sculpture of the veiled Vestal Virgin at Chatsworth. That is no cloth over the face that is marble, carved marble? Stunning

The monk is a carving from a florentine door.

I love his nose

And other carvings offer a chance to explore texture and shape

I do have a fondness for Scandinavian, Norse carvings, imagery and runes.

Some of my favourite pieces at the moment belong to a talented bone carver http://www.bonecarver.com I recommend you go look at what he does. Here are a few of my favourite pieces for his website.

I hope you have enjoyed a brief look into what I look at in-between carving my own work. The final images are my carvings. Two that are a year or so old and the last more recent. They are ones that I am pleased to display alongside of these other artists.

Your comments are as always welcome

~ Dave ~