Woodcarving – Experiments

Woodcarving is often about completing a project for a client. This is Mr. Jones’s favorite little runabout, “Cleo II,” which Mrs. Cleo Jones commissioned for her husbands’s seventieth birthday. It’s no time to experiment; just get it done.
But to learn, you need to experiment. Some people don’t like to invest much time in experimentation because there’s no immediate profit. But you will stay static as an artist if you don’t invest in your craft.

The current experiment started as a straightforward portrait of a schooner from Bath, Maine, in the late 19th century. But as sometimes happens, S**T occurred in the form of fuzzy wood that would not yield to the usual remedies. So I put the carving, 90 percent done, aside.

As many carvers do, failures are sorted according to whether they can be salvaged or burned. Yep. A family that heats with wood always needs kindling. In this case, I decided to use the carving in an experiment.

I work in a ship and boat portraiture tradition derived from 19th-century sailor models. My grandfather was involved in this tradition, which I admired. Regrettably, his models were given to my cousins, who destroyed them in play. But their memory stuck with me.
So, my portraits are deliberately not scale models but the sort of portraiture that a sailor in the ship’s company would make.
Some of the most outstanding portraits in this tradition were dioramas of ships at sea.

I decided to use the discarded carving in an experimental diorama. I cut the carving apart, placed the hull and sails upon a painted backing, and sailing on a painted and textured sea. In the photo above, I’ve started work on the spars; the hull and sails are positioned to stand free of the background, adding depth to the scene.
Numerous techniques in this project were new, from painting the background, adding dimensionality to the hull and sails, and going whole hog on the painted and textured sea.

I still have work to finish the piece. And I won’t rule out making further changes. I must finish the spars, add furled topsails, and other details. I may leave out standing rigging – I wonder whether it would add or detract from the rest of the experiment. That’s the pleasure of this type of explorative experimentation – the uncertainty of it all.

On the one hand, too many hours have gone into this project, but I will certainly take away some new approaches and reevaluate parts of my work style.