52 Weeks of Carving - Week 14 - Simple Acanthus leaf

 So for my birthday, a few weeks ago, I got the book "Carving The Acanthus Leaf" by Mary May. I decided that it's silly to read the book and not try to put anything into practice. So for a skill building session this week I decided to tackle the first leaf in the book - the simple acanthus leaf. 

I started by cutting the rough shape out on the bandsaw, then sketched the leaves and shapes onto it. This was possibly the trickiest bit of the carving! Tools ages to get the symmetry needed. 

For work holding I decided to glue the piece to a piece of paper and then mount it to a bit of ply. It's always surprising how well this works! 

The book was good and works through the steps really clearly. I like that within a few steps I can already tell her favourite chisels and the order that she approaches jobs. 

My carving was a bit messy as had quite a few faceted edges, I need to learn to smooth these out as I go. It's a really simple design but a great learning tool.

Not sure what my next project will be. Possibly another task from the book, a leaf with a curl maybe.