The Wood Carving Site
dedicated to the designs, themes, and ideas for |
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| Simplifying
a Pattern into Basic Areas
Macaw Practice Pattern
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Most of the patterns that you find for relief carving are full of fine details for you to carve. In working with patterns, simplifying the design into general areas will help to guide you in the early stages of the work. when a design is made up of a repeating element, as the feathers on the Macaw, a carver will use contour shading to group areas of that element together. Trying to plan the placement of several ka-zillion individual feathers can be overwhelming. By determining groups of feathers to carve then detailing the individual feathers within that group makes the early carving stages much easier. Many carving patterns contain unrelated elements as a landscape scene. Here the pattern contains trees, fence posts, road beds, and building. For multi-element patterns the use of levels is more appropriate for simplifying the design. Please see our article "Northwest Adventurer" - Working with Levels in Wood Carving.
Begin this wood article by printing a copy of our Macaw Practice pattern below. As you read through the steps here you will be able to refer to that pattern as your reference point. |
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Click here for the detail pattern, small. |
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Tracing every line of a new pattern at the beginning of your carving is both time consuming and pointless. Many of those lines will be removed long before the detail they represent are carved. Instead, with just a little work on a pattern before you ever get to the wood will reduce the number of lines to be drawn as well as clarify separate areas of contour or layers. In the macaw design above you will note that all of the feathering is shown. By grouping the feathers into related areas and tracing along the outer edge of each of those sections, this pattern has now been reduced to contour areas for work. Click here for the area outline pattern.
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These contour areas determine the general shape of the macaw. With a pencil begin shading the design to establish the different levels in the work. Note that the back wing is shaded darker than the forward full wing, indicating that it will lie lower into the wood than the full wing. This shading can be "quick and dirty" notations on the pattern. It is just a chance for you to visually relate one area to another, what lies over and what lie under each area. Click here for shaded macaw pattern.
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After the shading is applied make any notes on the pattern that might help you in later work. Here the macaw has been marked as to what each contour area represents, i.e. front wing section, breast area, upper front tail, etc. |
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Most patterns have a "flow" to them. With this macaw note that the high area of the bird runs from the top of his head through the front wing, down to the tip of the foreground tail. Because it's a bird perched on the branch this flow line is slightly angled. Everything in the carving falls away from this flow line. Colored pencils make a nice marker for this step. |
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Once the pattern has been simplified it is ready for tracing. Note in the samples below that the contour areas have been carved and developed. In the second sample the feathers and detail are now laid into each section. Drop us an e-mail when you get your Macaw Practice Pattern done. We would love to see what you have carved. |
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Click on the sample images above for an enlargement of the carving.
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"Dandrus" was nice enough to send us "I learned the And, YES, we have started to add lots more detail |
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Article Courtesy of Classic Carving
Patterns |
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