Wood Carving

I learned to wood carve in art this month!

I began by choosing an image to carve. I wanted to do Stonehenge because it connected to the theme of "It's about time." I figured it was an interesting mystery that disobeyed the rules of time by being built in a seemingly impossible way for the time and still stands to this day.

I then made a clay maquette and designed the composition with an extra stone in it, taking artistic license. When I got my block of wood I layered the background off to begin with.

After lowering the background gradually (it took a few weeks), I started to focus on defining the figures.

The figures were then defined, but still flat and all on the same level. To fix this, I began shaping the figures' surfaces and lowering the rocks that were further back.

After looking at my piece stood up, I realized that overall, the composition looked a little awkward. The larger rocks looked like they were floating with nothing grounding them or defining the background space. To fix this, I added a horizon line in the back of the landscape and began rounding off the larger rocks even more. I then began to round off some of the jagged edges and pt some more detail into the wood.

Update 2/2

This week was one of the finishing weeks for the wood craving pieces. This week I tried my best to round off the edges of the rocks and give them as much depth as possible. I ended up getting a good edge on the left most rock and adjusting the middle one as well.

Update 2/10

This week was the final week for this project. I first used rifflers and rasps to begin smoothing out the background and adding a smoother texture to the rocks. After, I used sand paper to put the finishing touches on the shapes.

The final step was to apply Danish oil to the carving.