Carving

“ Beginners in carving are, without exception, so anxious to get ornaments or leaves in relief, and to produce some kind of high-class art work, that they pass over grooving and curve-carving or flat-cutting as of very little consequence, when in fact it would be in every way much more to their advantage to develop it to the utmost. ”

“ To carve a lily of the valley or a deer’s head out of [49] a solid block of wood is not as easy as the other kinds of carving, but if you have a natural aptitude for using tools and an eye for art you can succeed as well as the next one.
Fig. 25d. a carved watch case holder
Chip Carving. —You will need only three tools for chip carving and these are (1) a 1⁄4 inch chisel; (2) a parting tool and (3) a veining tool. ”

“ Carving in wood, in all countries where it has been practised, has ever preceded sculpture, or carving in stone. It is, therefore, an art of the highest antiquity; and, although the same with sculpture in some of its applications, yet it differs from it somewhat in the mode of execution, according with the nature of the material.
3. The art of carving is very extensive in its application, [154] being used in the decorative parts of architecture, both civil and naval, and likewise in ornamenting cabinet-ware, as well as in forming patterns for casting in metals, particularly in iron and brass. ”

“ Carving is by all odds the hardest of all woodworking processes to learn and yet there are some simple forms of it that are at once easy to do and pretty to look at. While carving is an art in itself it can be used with fine effect in combination with some kinds of scroll sawed and turned work.
Your Set of Carving Tools. —To begin with you can get along very well with a set of six carving tools. ”

“ A carving tool is sharpened from both sides because the edge, so made, enables the artist to cut from many positions without turning the wood, and when he can use both hands he has the same advantage to a greater degree. ”

“ Carving in the round is cutting an object which is finished on every side, as a bust or statue. It is in fact “statuary.” It seems to be very difficult work to a beginner, but the pupil who has mastered the rudiments which are laid down in this book, and who can measure and cut a low relief of an inch, or a high relief pattern of two or three inches, will find no trouble whatever in carving something small in the round, and in progressing from this to something larger. ”

“ It is true that there seems to have been at one time an itch for carving, for in certain regions every piece of stone that projected from the ground has been carved as it lay, without any attempt to remove it: perhaps, a beneficent influence was created with each serene carved face. ”

“ Hence, throughout all the successive changes of style brought about by time and difference of country, climate, or material, the art of carving steadily progressed hand in hand with the art of building. ”

“ Method.—The process for relief carving is usually as follows. The carver first fixes the wood to his bench by means of the screw already referred to. He then (a) sketches on the main lines of his idea, indicating the flowers, foliage, &c.; or (b) should the design be very intricate or of a geometrical character, he traces the whole design from a pattern first prepared on paper ”

“ It was in fact a simple combination of relief and incised or cavo carving, by means of which a strong relief was [91] attained by little work. The main object was to make the inscription solid and durable, and at the same time very legible. The principle, as I have shown, is quite applicable to ornament, and requires much less labour than even intaglio carving. It is something more, in fact much more, than mere outlining, and it is particularly applicable to mural or wall decoration.
Incised carving is often much improved by being painted, and sometimes varnished. ”

“ In carving, where the original surface forms the highest relief, and has to be cut back to form the ground, the result would be reversed, the individual worker being more attracted to the treatment of detail than to clearing away uninteresting spaces. Carving, whether in wood or stone, is employed in various decorative positions, and except in the enrichment of friezes or mouldings—when the repeating unit is desirable—the design should be complete in itself. ”

“ Some notion of the relative position of bones, joints, fat, tough and tender muscles, is the first requisite to good carving. All agree that skill in carving may be acquired by practice; and so it may. Any one can divide a joint if he cut and hack at it long enough, and so learn after a time just where to make the right cut. But a more satisfactory way is to make a careful study before the material is cooked, and thus learn the exact position of every joint, bone, and muscle. Become familiar with a shoulder or a leg of mutton ”

“ WOOD-CARVING, the process whereby wood is ornamented with design by means of sharp cutting tools held in the hand. The term includes anything within the limit of sculpture in the round up to hand-worked mouldings such as help to compose the tracery of screens, &c.
Material.—The texture of wood limits the scope of the carver in that the substance consists of bundles of fibres (called grain) growing in a vertical direction without much lateral cohesive strength. ”

“ The road goes into the picture, the bridge is seen end on, the house and mill are diminished in size, and [223] the horizon is strongly enforced by a shadow echoed in the sky. The carving looks ridiculous beside the painting, but it is a severe test, as it is not a subject which should be carved at all in that condensed way.
Fig. 74. CHAPTER XXIV ARCHITECTURAL CARVING
The Necessity for Variety in Study—A Carver's View of the Study of Architecture ”

“ Finally, the author has endeavoured in these pages to treat wood-carving not merely as a fine art, whose chief aim is to produce specimens of fancy work for exhibitions, and facsimiles of flowers, never to be touched, but also to qualify the learner for a calling, and what nine-tenths of all practical wood-carving really consists of, that is, house and other large decoration, and of work which is to be perhaps painted, and exposed to the air. ”

“ The great difficulty in carving in deep relief and in the round, is to get the general sweep and contour and proportions of the whole, and this is difficult for a pupil who does not design, and shade, and model, while it is a mere trifle to one who does. ”

“ It is confidently believed that, by these means, the day may yet arrive when thousands of our benighted countrymen and countrywomen will be so well skilled in the art of carving, as to be able to define "joints innumerable in the smallest chick that ever broke the heart of a brood hen," and supply fourteen people handsomely, from a single pheasant, still retaining the leg for himself. ”

“ Work done in this manner, provided the carver has skill and taste, is sure to show character and life, and to differ entirely from the mechanical conventionalisms we generally see in modern stone-carving. ”

“ The dullness which comes of "all work and no play" may be said to affect the carver at times. He tires of carving leaves and ornaments: what more natural than to seek change and amusement in the invention of droll figures of men or animals? The enjoyment which we all feel in contemplating the outcome of this spirit in ancient work, leads us to the imitation of both subject and manner, hoping thereby that the same results may be obtained ”

“ Carving is a trade apart from ordinary joinery, and requires a special ability and some artistic feeling for its successful execution. But even in this work machinery has found a place, and carved ornaments of all descriptions are rapidly wrought with its aid. Small carved mouldings especially are evolved in this manner, and, being incomparably cheaper than those worked by manual labour, are used freely where a rich effect is desired. ”

“ Or remove the bone in the leg by scraping the meat away at either end. Learn to distinguish the different cuts of meat. The best way to learn about carving poultry and game is to cut them up for a stew or fricassee, provided care be taken not to chop them, but to disjoint them skilfully.
Then, when you attempt to carve, do the best you can every time. Never allow yourself to be careless about it, even should the only spectators be your wife and children. But do not make your first effort in the art at a company dinner. Every lady should learn the art. ”

“ Carving and gilding are, in most cases, ostensibly united as one business, although in fact they are branches of manufacture totally distinct. The gilder, therefore, who writes over his door, "Carver and Gilder," seldom has any practical knowledge of carving. ”

“ The quicker he works, the fewer times he goes over the same part, the more sketchy the subsidiary portions, the less high finish he puts into the detail, the better the result. Incised work, chip-carving, &c., are generally finished at once and not in stages. Much carved work, that of savage nations for instance, is of course carved without the assistance of a bench. ”

“ He grasps your hair; he holds a sharp carving knife in the other hand; you reach out for the knife and seize it, when, with a terrible oath, he draws the keen blade out of your grasp, and almost severs your fingers in doing so! ”

“ For the same reasons I am led to form a strong opinion that the carving was executed long before the date of British occupation. Irrespective of these reasons, however, I would point to the carving itself as an answer to the theory; and the argument here makes as strongly against the suggestion of French origin as it does against that of British. The features and expression of the face are not in any respect European, neither is the shape of the head. ”

“ Good flat-carving, which endures anything, is better than this, and the roses, even if in high relief, would look none the worse for being solidly though conventionally cut. A good chimney-piece and a handsome high-backed armchair can be very well executed by anybody who can do ordinary panel carving. ”

“ There can be none in the brute hardness of the new carving. Look at the animals which I have given in Plate XIV, as an instance of living work, and suppose the markings of the scales and hair once worn away, or the wrinkles of the brows, and who shall ever restore them? ”

“ I showed him also where the carving had sprung up before the point of my knife, making plain the ‘fact that the carving had been glued to the fabric.
“His lordship got that made by a local carpenter twenty-five years ago,” said I; “and yet he tries to sell it to me for antique carved oak. It strikes me that in Wardour Street he would find a congenial episcopate.” ”

“ Fruit is gilt, with red dashes of colour showing the ripeness, and the greens in colouring the foliage are varied in their tone. The deep carving occurs mostly in the interior of buildings, where depth of effect is required, but at the same time there is no communication with the outer air, which would be obtained if pierced carving were used. ”

“ Though the imitation of engravings is not within the range of wood-carving, there is, however, a very pretty and easy art by which drawing and painting are very ingeniously combined with a kind of carving. Take a panel of firm wood of lightish colour, well planed and polished. Draw on it any pattern, or even an animal, or human figures. Incise the principal lines with a V tool, or, according to its size, small gouges may be used. For the fine lines and shading, a tracer, or any point to indent, not so sharp as to scratch ”

“ The tangs of these tools, that is the sharp ends which fit into the handles, have shoulders on them to prevent the handles from creeping and splitting. The best carving tools on the market are those made by S. J. Addis of London, and you can’t go wrong if you buy them.
Fig. 22. kinds and sweeps of carving tools
Carving tools as they come from the makers are sharpened but not honed, that is the tools are ground sharp, but the inside bevel of the tools must be rubbed up with an oil stone slip and most wood carvers like to do this themselves. ”

“ Simple Jacobean Wood Carving. Direct gouge work.
In the design—which may occupy or fill the shape and can be symmetrically arranged on a central axis, or balanced—the effect is due mainly to Light and Shade. Further interest may be imparted by the sectional form or modelling of the details, groovings, striations or other textural suggestions.{303}
Backgrounds
The employment of punched grounds in carved work is to be deprecated as mechanical in effect. Sufficient interest is obtainable by the process of cutting back, in the perfect levelling of which the carver need not be too concerned. ”

“ Good Housekeeping has so many wails from correspondents who find the matter of Carving a burden grievous to be borne, and who ask for detailed instructions in the Art of the Carving Knife, that we offer $25 for the best and most complete paper on Carving—practical, instructive and comprehensive—that may be sent us on or before November 1st, 1886. ”

“ Here is a carving-knife and fork, none of your wasters, capital buck-horn handle, manufactured of the best steel, in a regular workmanlike manner; fit for carving in the best style, from a sparrow to a bullock. ”

“ But [Pg 166] the same tribes execute carvings of animals, as seals, sea-lions, whales, bears, &c., which, though generally wanting in the careful modeling necessary to constitute fine sculpture, and for absolute specific resemblance, are generally recognizable likenesses. Now and then indeed is to be found a carving which is noteworthy for spirited execution and faithful modeling. The best of them are far superior to the best executed carvings from the mounds, and, are much worthier objects for comparison with modern artistic work. ”