September Madness

Well, were in September now.  I just finished a carving I did of my dad.  It turned out pretty well for my first real effort trying to produce a good caricature.  I hope I will find this will come easier as I do more and more pieces. 

It took me about 2 days to get the biggest portion of this done.  I worked a few nights after work for 2 to 3 hours to finish details and painting.  At first, I was just going to do a generic caricature, and then my son said this looked like Grandpa.  I could tell it favored him, so I concentrated my effort toward making it look more like him.  I didn't have a lot of wood left to get real fancy, but I think I managed to pull it off.  I showed it to my Dad, and he thought it really looked like him.  He would glance at it now and then and just laugh out loud about it.  That was pretty high praise; since it seems that most of the time you can draw people and they won't think it looks like them.  Well, I guess that is about all I have now until I get something more done.  So many carvings....so little time. 

Caricature Carving

I consider myself somewhat of a "Serial Hobbyist".  I spend money on woodcarving tools and start woodcarving projects I don't finish.  I spend money on drawing paper and expensive Prisma-Colored pencils and then do a few drawings and they go on the shelf.  I just wish I could focus on one thing.  I seem to be pretty good a most things....but want to be an expert at everything. 

This week, I have gotten back into my woodcarving.  I am interested especially in carving figures.  There are some pretty cool caricature carvings out there.  I have been watching videos on YouTube and other Internet sites on techniques.  It is amazing what you can learn from these videos.  I carved the traditional hillbilly and dogs the other night.  If I can figure out how to post the pictures of them, I will do so in short order.  Well, that's all for now....just getting this thing off the ground.