Green Men and Wood Spirits #2: My Second Green Man - It's larger and deeper.

This green man is from a pattern by the famous artist and woodcarver, Lora S Irish. The pattern is in her book, Relief Carving Wood Spirits: A Step-By-Step Guide for Releasing Faces in Wood . I love this book and Lora Irish has inspired me.

After carving this pattern in my last blog entry I decided that I wanted to do a second version of the carving, only larger and deeper. As on the first carving, I transferred the pattern to the blank and cut the pattern on the scroll saw. The picture below shows the result of this.

The next picture shows the pattern next to the book. The first carving was about the size of the picture on the cover of the book so you can see how much larger this carving will be.

I had to put a larger base board on my carving platform.

I begin by cutting the eye sockets and raising the nose by removing the material around the nose.

I have a deeper wood blank so I can remove more wood this time and make the nose more prominent. As you can see I can cut the eye sockets a little deeper and you can also see that I round over slightly the bottom of the eye sockets.

I begin to raise the left side of the beard during the next step.

I began on the other side of the beard as well but also began forming the leaf lobes and work on the tendrils a bit.

I carved the eyes at this point and worked on some of the details of the lobes – for instance, the little curl on the left side of the middle lobe.

The lobes , tendrils, and beard receive a little more work. I don’t necessarily go in any kind of order after I get going but can jump around. My eye sees something and I may or may not work on it at that particular time. I can’t really help myself.

I’m making everything a little deeper and a little more detailed this time.

I now start on some of the minor details even though nothing is finished and everything keeps changing. I really jump around quite a bit as my eye sees something I should take care of. Just a little fiddling here and there as I call it. My way is probably not the most efficient.

The tendrils are beginning to come along as well.

Part of the tendrils have been pierced sawed on the scroll saw. Actually the whole of the carving is beginning to fall into shape.

I also work on the beard and mustache and put in the veins in the lobes.

The eyebrows appear and more detail and tendril work occurs.

I continue to clean it up here and there and fuzz with the details a bit more.

This carving is coming to a close but you continue to fuzz with it until you just stop and say enough.

But it’s pretty much done at this point. I have put more detail in it all over than the first green man.

The light will reflect some of these changes.

After a coat of Watco Danish Oil perhaps some more details AND faults will show up.

As you can see my work place is a mess. In my my mind I have a way of correcting that if I can make myself quit carving long enough to do it.

My shop is a helluvawreck right now and there are carvings stacked all over. I will straiten it all out when I quit carving long enough.

After I get through carving something I go out on my patio and sit a while staring at it while drinking a nice cold beer and maybe have a cigar. I think about it a lot and ask myself what went wrong and how I can do better next time. I think about whether I learned anything from this carving. Those sorts of things are on my mind as I look at the carving.

This is what the two carvings look like next to each other. The second is on the left, of course.

I appreciate ya’ll looking at my blog and I hope that you will come back in the future. I really enjoyed carving this green man. Thanks for looking.

helluvawreck
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com/

-- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau