Acanthus Leaf Step-by-Step - Mary May

Happy New Year!

Last spring I taught a class in Rio Grande, Ohio for the SAPFM (Society of American Period Furniture Makers). One of the projects we carved was an acanthus leaf on a flat board in basswood – before carving a similar leaf on the knee of a cabriole leg. The reason we carved this first was simply to understand the layout, overlapping technique, and general flow of an acanthus leaf.

This leaf is the same style leaf I demonstrated on The Woodwright’s Shop with Roy Underhill. You can see this video if you click on this link. If you click on the individual photos below, you can see a very high resolution photo that shows good detail.

Here is a pdf file that shows how to draw an acanthus leaf and the final drawing can be used as a template.

drawing acanthus032

Happy carving!

: Step 1: Lower down the background by carving around the leaf with a v-chisel and then outlining with vertical cuts with a gouge that matches the outside edge of leaf.

: Step 2: With a v-chisel, make a cut on each side of the center vein line, leaving the vein raised.

: Step 3: Round over the outside edge of the leaf with a #3, 6mm.

: Step 4: Round over the leaf towards the center vein – down to the v-cut previously cut.

: Step 5: With a v-chisel, carve along the overlapping edges of the leaf.

: Step 6: With a #3, 6mm and #4, 12mm, make vertical cuts defining the edge of the leaf with vertical cuts.

: Step 7: This is what it should look like at this point.

: Step 7: Lower down these sections of the leaf to give the appearance that it is going underneath.

: Step 8: With a #11, 3mm veiner, make “eyes” which are holes where the leaves overlap.

: Step 9: With a #3, 6mm, continue cutting these “eyes” so it is a tear drop shape that comes down to a sharp corner.

: Step 10: Close-up of “eye”.

: Step 11: Close-up of “eyes” and overlapping sections of leaf.

: Step 12: With a #11, 3mm veiner, make long cuts from either side of the “eye” to make a raised area called the “pipe”.

: Step 13: Details of completed “pipe”.

: Step 14: With at #7, 6mm, make a flip at the end of this section of leaf.

: Step 15: Make another flip at the end of the leaf.

: Step 16: With a #3, 6mm, make little notch cuts along every small leaf separation.

: Step 17: Details of there “notches” made in step 16.

: Step 18: Draw in vein lines down center of every leaf section.

: Step 19: Make v-cuts down these lines for vein lines. Make sure these all gently flow down to center vein

: Step 20: Make little “notches” in “pipe” with a #7, 6mm. These are little wrinkles in the pipe – giving more appearance of 3-dimension.

: Step 21: Details of these notches on the pipe

Thank you