I did a bit more writing this week and practiced it until I could do it a reasonable speed. Then filmed myself and sped it up!
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Monday, 12 July 2021
52 Weeks Of Carving - Week 26 - Carved Writing - A Lesson Learned
I've deliberately missed out a couple of weeks on here - not because I wasn't carving, but because I couldn't show it on here. Hopefully I'll be able to show that project soon.
This last week I decided to tackle a part of carving I'd been intimidated by - writing. And it's a big part of being a carver is being able to do some good and neat writing carved into wood. I've also got a job coming up with a little writing so decided that this would be a good time to practice and convince myself I could do it.
Of course being me I couldn't just pick a simple word. Instead I picked out one of my favourite phrases that I often say to the children when I tell them they need to look after each other - "The Strength of the wolf is in the pack and the strength of the pack is in the wolf" From the law of the jungle in the Jungle Book.
I printed it out and started to carve. I was surprised how easy it was once I'd got the right chisels sorted and approached the carving in a systematic way. It's lots of repetitive cuts and I found that I left it set up with the few chisels I needed and just attacked it whenever I got 5 minutes. The nice clean piece of oak helped I imagine.
Of course this would have been much harder in the past without a printer - but I try to use technology to my advantage where I can. Sticking the sheet on was a great idea but I need to find some better glue as this one took some taking off in the end. A book I own about doing carved writing even says how drawing it out is over half the job - not anymore!
Luckily it cleaned up well with white spirits,
I then sealed it with a coat of Scandinavian oil.
Now some of the more astute amoung you might spot something on this carving that I didn't.
I mean I really didn't.
I then showed it to a friend, who laughed a bit then looked at me.
"You know you've spelt this wrong?" she said in her strong Australian accent.
"Get lost"
"No really - That's not how you spell strength."
"Bugger"
I was genuinely gutted. How had I not seen that! Normally I get my wife to check all my writing (except on here) and this time I hadn't. I felt like such a fool!
So this is a cautionary tale about how you should always check your work before you spend a long while carving it out!
Anyone else made a mistake like this?