Finished with Dragon Carving

I will be finishing up the dragon carving this week – just in time for Christmas! I made a successful silicone rubber mold (always a scarey process for me) and once I have the video edited (6 hours maybe?) I will have the casting available for purchase and may even consider making it out of resin which will be much more durable. I just poured my first plaster casting and have not demolded it yet. I may wait for a day or so just to make sure it is fully cured.

Another moment where I was a little nervous was removing the carving from the backer board. It took some gentle convincing with a flat chisel and mallet to cause the paper to release. Once it did, the whole thing gently lifted off – with no breakage! I don’t think I’ve ever done anything this large glued down with newspaper and glue. I don’t see why it would be different with larger pieces, but it did make me a little nervous. It turns out that the newspaper/glue method is the best one to fall back on, and has never let me down – so far.

Last week I worked with Greg Guenther in Savannah. He has 2 lovely period tables to make that have some sweet little acanthus leaf brackets. Also I will be carving a spiral flute on a sphere shape for a pedestal table. I will write a separate blog post on this job once I get into it more next week.

My husband and I also were able to stay a few extra days at Laura’s Cottage (a cottage that Greg and his wife, Vicki rents out – absolutely wonderful place to stay), so we enjoyed a relaxing Savannah weekend.

Today I taught 5 guys from Myrtle Beach the basics of woodcarving. They are part of a woodworking club there, and came down for the day to get started in carving. They were a great group of guys and are planning on a more advanced class down the road. 5 people in my shop can get pretty tight – especially with sharp chisels in hand – but we managed to survive through it with no major injuries!