The Carousel Journey

This is titled as such to best describe the process of carving this large scale project since this was my first attempt at “wood carving”. Had I known the depth of difficulty and length of the learning-curve initiallly, I might have chickened out for a few more years or never attempted it at all.

Four years ago the unchartered quest of carving this carousel horse began. It would have been done much sooner, but I would “shut down” sometimes for months from the intimidation and lack of information to solve some of the problems.

Enlarging the line-drawing onto kraft paper, it became the pattern used throughtout as a reference. Planks and blocks of basswood were planed and glued up in a “coffin-like” fashion commonly used in early carouse- carving practices. The basic shape was roughed-out wth a chainsaw wheel attached to an angle grinder, then hand-carved with various chisels.

Parts of the mane are still being filled, sanded and primed. The tail still lacks the final carving details. The body of the horse is painted a pastel yellow and will be glazed to give it an aged, antique appearence. Painting the trappings, etc. is in-process. In all honesty, this stage is moving very slowly because of not wanting to “mess it up” after all the work of getting it to this point. My new-year’s resolution is to complete it in 2007. We can only hope.