Mary May – WoodcarverWood Carving Projects
Celtic Design for oak table
Today was a very busy day working with messy, dusty machines. If I know I have to use grinders, routers, or whatever it is, I try to do it all in one day to get it over with. I really could do without doing this part, but I guess it gets me to the fun [...]
Duplicating details for an altar table
I am in Savannah, GA working with master furniture maker and restorer, Greg Guenther (www.guentherwoodgroup.com). He is making a new altar table to match an existing one, and I am going to be carving the details. There will be 2 large capitals, egg and dart going around the entire table, and some leaf molding at [...]
Final photo of Elmira College Sign
Wayne Ferree sent me a photo of the finished carving of the Elmira College sign I helped carve back in December. I spent a week focusing on carving the building, and they finished the landscaping and tree carving after I left. It’s exciting to see the finished piece – lots of blood, sweat, and tears [...]
More progress on carving the shell niche
I’ve made some good progress on the acanthus detail in the center of the shell niche. I am happy with the way it is turning out. Many times I will draw the design on paper first, but with the scroll design and the contours involved, I really needed to draw the design straight on the [...]
Grinding away the shell niche
Here is a photo of me grinding away the inside of the shell to shape the surface before carving the flutes. Soon I should be at a point where I can start to carve the scroll and acanthus detail in the center. That very fine basswood dust sticks to everything! I like hand carving – [...]
Starting Another Shell Niche
I am working on one of three shell niches that I am carving for a historical home in Louisville, KY. These are quite a bit larger than the previous shell niches I did. These are 32″ wide x 16″ tall x 12″ deep. My husband figured out the measurements and band-sawed out much of the basswood before [...]
Fixing a Pressed Acanthus Leaf
Sometimes I get some very interesting work. A client has brought a 4-post bed in that has a pressed acanthus design. I am not really sure how they did this, because it is very deeply pressed. Maybe this wood allows it. He wants me to touch it up to look hand carved. I never turn down [...]
Carving a Hand
I have a very interesting job that I am working on now. There is a marble statue of the Virgin Mary with her right hand missing at the wrist. My job is to carve a hand in marble to make it look natural. Well, there are a few difficulties with this (besides the fact that [...]
Photos on carving the Concave Newport Shell
Hello everyone. I’m heading off the the airport in about 45 minutes. I ran across some photos of the process of carving the concave newport shell and wanted to quickly get them up on my blog. It’s not a complete process, but shows the basic steps. Have fun!
Concave Newport Shell
Well, it has been a week of preparation and business – nothing really to show for it – and I hate to go more than a week without putting in another blog post, so I’m taking some from my archives. Here is an instruction sheet I put together on how to carve the concave Newport [...]
