TexasWoodcarving.com

Ricky Smith is one of my talented woodcarving students. He is currently working on a carving of a blacksmith. He provided some photos of his progress and I thought I'd share them with you all. I think these pictures show a nice progression through the rough out stage into starting the detail work. I'm eager to see it continue to develop and hopefully we will have more pictures of the blacksmith to share in the future.

Some readers of this site may remember my post about ultra high resolution images of masterpieces from the Uffizi Gallery . Well, Google has taken this idea to the next level with their Google Art Project . The site lets you explore famous museums and zoom in on the details of many works. You can see close up the fantastic details in a painting like The Ambassadors . Following are a few videos that give you an idea of what you can see and do at Google Art Project . Have a look and let me know if you think this will be an aid to your art creation and appreciation.

I added a picture of a carving of St. Francis of Assisi to my website gallery. I made this piece some time ago and the photograph is not the best, but I do like the carving and wanted to add it to the gallery. Anyway, have a look and let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

I recently became aware that Ian Norbury's website underwent a redesign. This was an opportunity to see some of his more recent carving. If you are not familiar with the talent of Ian Norbury, you should have a look at his site. While looking at Ian's site, I found out that he has a blog at http://inorbury.blogspot.com . On his blog, he provides some great insights into the process of creating his unique carving. Check out post such as this post or this one .

Doug Oliver sent along this link to a site with some beautiful carvings from St. Martin's in Austin that he came across while doing research. http://issuu.com/ stmartinsaustin/docs/final_ art_book?mode=embed&layout= http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com% 2Fv%2Fdark%2Flayout.xml& showFlipBtn=true Have a look and let me know what you think.

A fellow carver sent me a link to these miniature pencil tip sculptures by Dalton Ghetti. You can see some of additional photos of his work from an exhibition at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center. Have a look and let me know what you think.

The folks at http://www.haltadefinizione.com/  have scanned masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli and others at incredibly high resolutions. You can zoom in to see the finest details of the brush strokes. You can even see any cracks that may have appeared in the paint. This is likely more detail than you would be able to see in person without magnification. I think we can learn a lot from studying the works of past masters. Have a look and let me know what you think.