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 shell. These are easier to do than the convex shell because they don’t have the sharp adges (sort of v-cut edge) that go along the length of the lobes, and they can easily go wrong. Occasionally you will see where these edges are put in the concave shell, but I would say that most of the time you only see them in the convex shells. When you don’t have this detail to worry about, you really do have a lot of lee-way.

I have also changed the category where I explained carving the convex Newport shell to the category “Newport shell”, where before it was under “woodcarving education” because it was a class I taught. I think it is easier to follow and locate this way.

I spent the week basically preparing for heading out of town next week – Boston to teach 2 days (the Samuel McIntire fruit basket), and Saratoga Springs, NY to demonstrate carving the ball and claw and acanthus leaf at the Northeast Woodworking show over the weekend. I hope to be able to put blogs up as I go. I have never been in this area of the country, so I am really looking forward to it.

Today I set up my workbench at the Master of the Building Arts show at the American College of the Building Arts here in Charleston www.buildingartscollege.us/. They are a school that is working on preserving the traditional building trades – timber framing, traditional carpentry, plaster work, wrought iron, masonry, and stone carving. I have taught several classes to the carpentry students, and have helped them in some fund-raising programs, and shows etc. throughout the years. They have had a long struggle in getting known, but it is such an wonderful and unique school where they are really trying to preserve the dying arts. I do hope they succeed, and I am really happy to be involved.

Tomorrow I am expecting about 40 people over at our house because my husband, Stephen, youngest son, Joshua, and neice, Laura are all celebrating their birthdays. So… to say the least, I have had my plate full this past week. Not much carving done, but lots of other things done.

Oh, how could I forget? Roy Almaroad (who has posted the occasional blog response) stopped by my shop Wednesday and really gave me some wonderful advice on carving faces. He has studied classical art – sculpture and drawing – in Italy, and has taught art at high school for many years. So, we spent most of Wednesday going over and adjusting the “classical face” that I carved (my client finally got it back to me with some requested changes) and now I need to carve 3 more. When I am finished doing the adjusting to the first face, I’ll post a before and after photo to show the subtle but very important changes.

Anyway, wow – it looks like I need a vacation. Doesn’t look like that will happen soon – got a notice from SC tax that my husband’s company is being audited – and I do his paperwork – just something more to add to it! It will probably be Wed. or Thursday before I am able to blog again.