Buzzy's work: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate - Tiki Carving

BPB Bay Park Buzzy Tiki Socialite West Bay Park, San Diego, CA Joined: Apr 07, 2006 Posts: 3066	BPB Bay Park Buzzy Posted posted on Mon, May 1, 2006 1:15 AM I need to catch up with my saga, so here is the story of Tiki #15, started in Jan 06. It was a single comment. On a thread. Somewhere here. If I would have missed it, who knows how my development would have been altered. I just heard the right thing at the right time. I do not remember who said it to whom, but the gist of it was my motivation for the next several pieces of work. Someone mentioned to someone, which I just happened upon and read at complete random, that his work was cool because he did whole bodies, and no one did whole bodies anymore, only faces. I didn't bother to try to validate his claims, it really didn't matter if it was true or not. What did matter was that it planted the seed in my head to work on full bodies to see if I could do them. I had done only 3-4 whole bodies at this point and none were complex at all. I was still trapped in only carving on the front half of the log or making those bodies that are less than anatomically realistic and more of a representational depiction of a body. In other words, I felt like I needed to step up my body work a little bit. I did not try anything too complex for this attempt. I just wanted to kind of work things out by going for it and seeing what I could learn and what I would have to improve upon in the future. I'm kind of laughing upon reflection of this one because I intended to do a whole body instead of just a head, and when I look at it, I notice that it is 28 inches tall, and 21 inches of it are the head, with seven inches left for the body. At least I tried though. This one was done on a Mexican fan palm. The tree was very tall and old and the tree service brought me the whole tree. This piece was from the bottom portion and was very hard and dense. The fibers were extremely fine and firm and they had a beautiful orangish tint to them. Most of the bottom of the tree was like this. About half way up the tree, the logs started splitting down the center. Every log past a certain point up the tree was like this. My tree removal expert informed me that perhaps the log split when it fell. That made sense to me. If the tree was cut down in one shot, it might have bent and split under its own strain of weight. The tree service now cuts down my trees in sections and lowers them with rope so this will not happen again. A good 20 feet of tree got turned into stain and tool "testor" logs from that one. Now for the visual aid part with all the pictures. It started with a 28" log, 8 1/2" in diameter. It's the one on the right: Drawn out the three lines guide the mouth. The top and bottom line show the mouth boundaries while the center line is used for chainsaw reference. I cut exactly to this line with the saw and finish it to proper depth by hand, later here it is after just starting It was January, so it got dark at 4:30, and I moved it inside and deepened it a little here it is after starting the crown details little more work. I was still using only flat chisels at this time and did not know how much easier it would have been to do with a nice set of gouges here it is when I thought it was done I thought that the details detracted from the face and made the piece too convoluted. After looking at it for a couple weeks and never being happy with it, I removed the crown detailing. It immediately improved the piece and drew the viewer's eye back to the face, rather than the messy crown. Here it is stained: Even though I did the whole body on this one, it was not really the result that I had in mind when I started it. I wanted a longer and more precise body. I guess that I'll have to leave myself more room next time. This one did, however, provide me another learning experience. The more I know and learn, the easier this gets. What I learned on this one: You can carve it too much and mess it up You can "uncarve" something It's never too late to change your mind 7" isn't enough room for a whole body Sometimes simple and plain works for a design [ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 13:56 ] [ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 14:01 ]

I need to catch up with my saga, so here is the story of Tiki #15, started in Jan 06.

It was a single comment. On a thread. Somewhere here. If I would have missed it, who knows how my development would have been altered. I just heard the right thing at the right time. I do not remember who said it to whom, but the gist of it was my motivation for the next several pieces of work. Someone mentioned to someone, which I just happened upon and read at complete random, that his work was cool because he did whole bodies, and no one did whole bodies anymore, only faces. I didn't bother to try to validate his claims, it really didn't matter if it was true or not. What did matter was that it planted the seed in my head to work on full bodies to see if I could do them. I had done only 3-4 whole bodies at this point and none were complex at all. I was still trapped in only carving on the front half of the log or making those bodies that are less than anatomically realistic and more of a representational depiction of a body. In other words, I felt like I needed to step up my body work a little bit.
I did not try anything too complex for this attempt. I just wanted to kind of work things out by going for it and seeing what I could learn and what I would have to improve upon in the future. I'm kind of laughing upon reflection of this one because I intended to do a whole body instead of just a head, and when I look at it, I notice that it is 28 inches tall, and 21 inches of it are the head, with seven inches left for the body. At least I tried though.
This one was done on a Mexican fan palm. The tree was very tall and old and the tree service brought me the whole tree. This piece was from the bottom portion and was very hard and dense. The fibers were extremely fine and firm and they had a beautiful orangish tint to them. Most of the bottom of the tree was like this. About half way up the tree, the logs started splitting down the center. Every log past a certain point up the tree was like this. My tree removal expert informed me that perhaps the log split when it fell. That made sense to me. If the tree was cut down in one shot, it might have bent and split under its own strain of weight. The tree service now cuts down my trees in sections and lowers them with rope so this will not happen again. A good 20 feet of tree got turned into stain and tool "testor" logs from that one.
Now for the visual aid part with all the pictures.
It started with a 28" log, 8 1/2" in diameter. It's the one on the right:

Drawn out

the three lines guide the mouth. The top and bottom line show the mouth boundaries while the center line is used for chainsaw reference. I cut exactly to this line with the saw and finish it to proper depth by hand, later

here it is after just starting

It was January, so it got dark at 4:30, and I moved it inside and deepened it a little

here it is after starting the crown details

little more work. I was still using only flat chisels at this time and did not know how much easier it would have been to do with a nice set of gouges

here it is when I thought it was done

I thought that the details detracted from the face and made the piece too convoluted. After looking at it for a couple weeks and never being happy with it, I removed the crown detailing. It immediately improved the piece and drew the viewer's eye back to the face, rather than the messy crown. Here it is stained:

Even though I did the whole body on this one, it was not really the result that I had in mind when I started it. I wanted a longer and more precise body. I guess that I'll have to leave myself more room next time. This one did, however, provide me another learning experience. The more I know and learn, the easier this gets.
What I learned on this one:

You can carve it too much and mess it up
You can "uncarve" something
It's never too late to change your mind
7" isn't enough room for a whole body
Sometimes simple and plain works for a design

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 13:56 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 14:01 ]

Post #229697 by Bay Park Buzzy on Mon, May 1, 2006 1:15 AM