This is a wood sculpture I made. I named her Donna. The classic trio: maple, cherry, and walnut. I used the Bauer carbide carving head on my angle grinder to rough it out, then finished carving it with chisels and gouges.
Carved from laminated maple, walnut and cherry. Finished with Boiled linseed oil. 24" tall.
Cedar weiner, pallet wood bun, pallet wood mustard dyed with unicorn spit. Steel rod and mixed hardwood base.
Cedar Weiner, mustard and bun are mystery pallet wood, base is a mixed hardwood lamination. Mustard is dyed with unicorn spit. The post is a steel dowel from an old hydraulic valve.
Carved this from a sweetgum log I found on the side of the road. I worked it mostly green, then dried and refined it before staining and finishing with boiled linseed oil.
I wanted to push the anatomy and depth while keeping the form stylized rather than going for strict realism. This ended up taking around 30 hours from log to finish.
Water bottle for scale.
I carved this out of a sweetgum log I found on the side of the road. Wasn't the worst wood to carve, a little tougher than I expected but not too bad. I'd give the species a 6/10. Stained, then finished with BLO. Water bottle for scale.
I've been spending a lot of time in the shop lately. I started making spoons while I was waiting on glue or finish to dry on other projects. Or when I had physical energy to make something but not as much creative energy to put into a larger piece. I like carving spoons because they don't use a lot of material and they give me some extra practice with my edge tools. 1-5 are walnut, 6 is maple, 7&8 are yellowheart, 9&10 are padauk.
I recently took an interest in wood sculpture, so I decided to do a material study. Each head is carved from a different species of wood, but I kept the style consistent so the material would be the primary variable.
From left to right: White Oak, Chinese Parasol, Eastern Red Cedar, Yellow Poplar, Spalted Red Maple, Pecan, ebonized Red Oak, and Black Gum.
I documented the entire study as a series of YouTube Shorts showing the carving process and what I learned from each piece.
Chinese Parasol and Black Gum were my favorite woods to carve. Pecan and White Oak are my favorite finished sculptures, while the Poplar is probably my least favorite.
Here is the link to the YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTpTEpZeWLsI&si=zXuanW79z6VqLez9