Old Project: Wood Spirit

You’ve all seen the Owl I made on Christmas Eve so I thought I’d share the first couple of carvings I made. A wood-spirit and a moai head.

Wood spirits are a very common carving project that usually takes the form of an old man with a long beard. I made mine from a stick of Alder I got from work. I suppose I was jumping in at the deep end with my choice of material somewhat. Most first time carvers are encouraged to use very soft and easily worked woods such as Basswood. Jumping straight in using found wood probably made things harder than they perhaps could have been but it was a rewarding experience.

I used a series of Youtube videos as a guide while making the wood-spirit. They’re well worth watching even if you don’t want to take up carving yourself. You can watch the videos here and here.

The maoi head was slightly different. I carved it from memory from a stick I found in the park. As you can see my memory was clearly a little hazy because it’s not a very accurate representation of a moai. Much of what I learned from carving the wood-spirit went into this project, especially the eyes and the nose. I used the same technique on both carvings.

It’s been over a year since I made these and I’d like to say I’ve come a long way but I haven’t. I simply haven’t made enough stuff to have improved by an appreciable amount. That should be a goal for 2013, make more stuff. At the very least a more accurate moai head should be on the cards.