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More on Carving a man’s head

December 26, 2011 / Mary May / Carving faces


I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I certainly did. Christmas Eve we had a little gathering here at my house and sang Christmas Carols and ate a lot of junk food. Christmas morning we all went over to my mother-in-laws house and she cooked a wonderful breakfast and we all went into their “Christmas Room” (which she leaves decorated all year – they REALLY love Christmas) and exchanged gifts. Then we went home to relax for a few hours and started all over again at my brother and sister-in-laws house. I was so full of food by evening, I think I could probably be sustained for a week on what we ate in one day. My in-laws are English, so they really love the sort of “Dickensian” style Crhistmas – very romantic. Hard to get too romantic without the snow, but that’s what spray-on snow is for!

I had an opportunity to work on the carving of the man’s face. My client said I needed to create a little more personality in the face, so I worked on getting some age and expression to the face – and also completing the hair so it doesn’t look like an eskimo with a big furry hat. I have really been enjoying carving this face – it has been a challenge, and I have been looking at a lot of people and studying their facial features and really discovering some amazingly subtle things about faces. I have to say the most satisfying part is when you carve the pupils in the eyes and all of a sudden this wooden sculpture actually comes to life! It almost takes your breath away the first time he looks at you.

 

4 comments on “More on Carving a man’s head”

  1. Mark says:
    December 27, 2011 at 9:14 am

    Very cool Mary. The way the light plays off the lower picture above, raking from the left of the face, is particularly striking. It almost animates, especially the eyes and mouth. I don’t know who the subject is of course but he’s obviously a rugged yet handsome fellow, not unlike a certain face I see in the mirror. 🙂

    • Mary May says:
      December 30, 2011 at 11:06 am

      Mark, there are those moments when reading comments actually causes me to laugh out loud – Thank you!

  2. Mike says:
    December 27, 2011 at 10:57 am

    Amazing work Mary! From what you taught us in the beginning carving class, I bet carving the pupils were a real challenge. Of course I came close to digging a hole that deep on the flowers you had us carve!

    • Mary May says:
      December 30, 2011 at 11:07 am

      Yeah – a dremel tool with a 1/8″ round bit would work wonders! (who said that???)

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