During this wood carving session we will separate the side of the nose from the cheek area of your wood spirit carving. So, Join me, Lora Irish, carving book author and carving pattern maker, as we work through the wood carving steps to free the cheek area of the Wood Spirit face from the nose and eye planes.
The fifth chapter in Lora Irish’s
Great Book of Free Carving Projects and Patterns Series –
“Wood Spirit Carving”- Steps 6 through 8.
Step 6
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| Using the bench knife or chip carving knife, cut the guidelines along the side of the nose. The cut goes from the tip of the nose bridge to the bottom corner of the large nose triangle. Work the cut at a 90 degree angle to the wood. |  |
| Make the second cut of the stop cut from the cheek area into the stop cut line made in the above step. |  |
| This will lift a small triangle wedge and create a flat shelf at the side on the nose in the cheek area.Work the second cheek area in the same manner. |  |
Step 7
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| To drop the lower eye lid area of the eye, at the top of the nose bridge, make a stop cut along the guideline for the eye, using the chip knife or bench knife. |  |
| Make a cut about 3/8″ to 1/2″ below the eye line, working towards the eye. Keep the knife blade flat to the wood to create a shelf. |  |
| Use your bench knife to clean up the guideline and any chips left from the previous two steps. |  |
| The eyes now have a slanting, rolling shelf that leads up to the eye guidelines. The nose have been freed from the sides of the face with the two-part stop cut. This leaves a high, pointed area in the cheek about 2/3’s up from the bottom of the nose. This high area will become the highest point in the cheek later. |  |
Step 8
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| To free the bottom of the nose from the lower cheek area, use a stop cut along the nose guidelines that runs from the high cheek area to the bottom point of the large nose triangle. |  |
| Make a second stop cut following the guideline at the bottom of the cheek line. |  |
| Free this lower cheek corner by making a third cut, working from the top nose corner of the first cut to the out corner of the second. This will lift a triangle chip from the area. |  |
| Release the triangle chip using the bench knife. You can cut this area several times to drop it as low as the deepest point of the eye shelf. |  |
| These last several steps have not only released the nose from the face, they have created the angle, high, and low points of the cheeks. |  |
| Use a two-stroke stop cut to create a wedge in the cheek area at the bottom of the nose nostrils. |  |
| The wedge in the previous step flows into the cuts made to establish the bottom of the cheek area. |  |
| At this stage we have a clear, free-standing nose, a wedge at the top of the face that will become the bottom of the brow ridge, the lower eye lid shelf, well shaped cheek areas, and the beginnings of the mustache for our wood spirit. |  |
Wood Spirit Mushroom
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Wood Spirit Carving, Free Project by Lora Irish 1 Introduction and Supply List 2 Walking Stick Preparation 3 Exploring the Human Face 4 Planes of the Human Face 5 Carve The Human Face 6 Shaping the Facial Features 7 Sloping the Sides of the Face 8 Rough Cutting the Features 9 Carving the Eyes 10 Detailing the Eyes 11 Shaping the Features 12 Defining the Cheek and Nose 13 Working the Facial Hair 14 Refining the Face Shape 15 Carving the Wrinkles 16 Trimming the Beard 17 Review of the Techniques |
