After I finished the pattern for this month I decided to carve it on a practice board before applying it to the actual blank. After I carved a couple of the main items in the pattern, I realized that a few changes were in
order.
The size of the stars was too small and not enjoyable to carve. You can see I even tried two different ways to carve the star to see if one worked better than the other.
Both were still too small, so to enlarge the stars I decided to shrink the cross pattern.
The end result was that the star was more enjoyable to carve, and the smaller crosses left more positive(uncarved) area. I liked the balance between the carved and uncarved areas. Sure, the cross could be larger and still look fine, but I decided to leave it as is. But it got me wondering...
What do you like to see in patterns that makes you want to carve it when you see
it?
Is it a balance of carved and uncarved space? Entirely symmetrical designs? Flowing, freeform lines? Or a challenging, jam-packed pattern with back-to-back carvings with potential chip-out around every corner?
Here is a picture of my chip carved and painted Sea Horse that took first place in Desert Woodcarving show in Mesa ,AZ
I did not want to stain it worrying that I would lose the sea horse and plants in the stained portion of
back ground. SO I used 3 different colors of iridescent blue to bring the horse to
life.
Dave
What a beautiful example of using color to enhance your carving! The 3 different types of blue and different greens provide good contrast. Congratulations!
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What are your latest projects?I'd love to see them! Send them to me at: troy@mychipcarving.com
