TexasWoodcarving.com

I recently carved a couple of bookmarks. I'd like to share some aspects of the process. These particular carvings were started away from my regular workbench. I used my small set of Flexcut tools in an old laptop bag. The carving surface is a clipboard with some grip pad on it. The bag does a fairly good job of holding the chips in. Back at the regular workbench the carving is completed and the lettering is burned in. The carving will be finished with a water based Minwax stain. First a pre-stain is applied. After the pre-stain has dried for about 15 minutes, an "English Oak" colored stain is applied. The stain is allowed to dry over night and then the piece is finished with a coat of Minwax Polycrylic. This will give it a nice hard finish with a nice sheen. I often like to finish with a coat of wax, but since this is intended to go between the pages of a book, I thought it best to forgo the wax. And there you have it. The lighting in the photographs could be better,

I just finished looking at the artwork and reading the essays on Anthony Visco's website at www.anthonyvisco.org . His work is quite impressive and I think his essays could be the starting point for some interesting discussions.

The bust Bill is working on of his grand daughter is coming along very well. The best complement he received so far is that her parents recognized her in the carving right away. Good work Bill.

Robert McGovern is an Emeritus Professor, University of the Arts, Philadelphia PA. He is a talented painter, print maker and sculptor. He has done extensive commission works throughout the United States as well as illustrating many books. I fund this artist's bio which has some images of his woodcarvings. Some more of his work can be seen at this exhibition page . I also read that he lectures on the concerns surrounding religious art in our times (which I feel is a very important subject for discussion.)

One of the students in my class thinking about carving a last supper. He thinking of carving this in the round rather than as a relief. With this in mind we discussed several ways to arrange the composition. I offered to find some images that might help with the creative process. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Levoca_Last_Supper.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Giotto_-_Scrovegni_-_-29-_-_Last_Supper.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Last_Supper_by_Theophanes_the_Cretan.jpg Some other images that may be interesting can be found at: http://www.museum-replicas.com/wc_ProductDetails.asp?PID=5969&SCID = http://www.easterinthepark.net/lastsupper.html http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rubens/rubens102.html In addition, check out the Last Supper images at Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Last_supper

I ran across fromoldbooks.org which is a site with thousands of high resolution images from old or rare books. Most of these images are now public domain. This should make one more useful reference site.

Here is a photo of Ricky's finished sign for Jenny Ellerbe Photography. Good work Ricky.