Can anyone suggest any decent resources for carving, in terms of furniture embellishments. I am _not_ interested in carving ‘rustic’ flatware or wrinkled faces. Thanks.
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Sources for what? Tools? How-to Books? Pre-carved items that can be glued to a project you built?
Books, video etc.
Reepenstein, you're in Europe, right? And you're looking for "how-to" instructional books and videos?
Lee mentioned "Manual of Traditional Woodcarving," by Paul Hasluck; this was reprinted by Dover and should be widely available. Very useful.
A widely-recommended book is Rick Butz, "How to Carve Wood." Lots of information, including step-by step projects, very detailed.
I have a book by British carver Dick Onians, "Essential Woodcarving Techniques" which has been helpful to me. It does not focus so much on specific techniques, though, as the overall approach to woodcarving. (Lee- what's your opinion of this book?)
The only video I have is "Carving the Acanthus Leaf" by Ian Agrell. Very good. It's a video presentation of his weekend class on the subject."Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein
http://www.albionworks.net
I'm not familiar with that book so I'm unable to comment. I really don't go shopping for books on carving, in fact I have very few books about woodworking technique...probably only a half dozen. I'm really not the one to ask.
If you want my opinion mail it to me and I'll tell you what I think.
Lee
Isn't that how you got the half dozen books in the first place ;)Tom
Douglasville, GA
So, whattya sayin', Tom...you want your books back?
Hah, hah, ha...
Lee
FWW has some videos, as does Cambium Press. The request is a bit general but I would check those sources for videos first.
Tom
I just started to do exactly what you propose to do. I selected a set of 12 carving chisels by looking at the recomendations of our own Lee Grindinger, Nora Hall and Chris Pye. If you do a google search by name you can find their websites with examples of incredible relief carving. Chris Pye's book “Woodcarving tools, materials and equipment” volume 2 is a great resource for everything but how to carve. Nora Hall has a series of videos on european carving. I bought the first two. Aside from instruction on carving, there is very useful directions on handling grain and sharpening your tools. She generally uses only 7 tools for most of her instruction so you could start with those sizes. On Chris Pye's website there are some free ebooks on relief carving. Lee has a very useful no nonsense blurb on carving that is very helpful to get started in carving.
I found the above very useful so far. Hope this helps
Edited 3/11/2004 1:28 am ET by haroldp16
The best source for these embellishments are museums. Study the pieces you admire and see how symetry and space is both created and filled with ornamentation. Balance is the most difficult part of a well designed and well ornamented piece. The next best place is the library. The heyday of carved furniture was the late 1700s in England and France. I'm not saying this was the pinnacle of design, it was just the time that carved embellishments were most employed. Sheraton had not yet scared the English away from Chippendale (or were they fleeing?) and the French had not yet finished with Rococo and the Louis clan. If the objective were to entirely cover a piece with tool marks look to this time period. Dover has Chippendale's Drawing book and another on Rococo absurdities as well as several others on that time period. A much overlooked style was going on the countryside of Europe where the nobility didn't have the influence and plain old middle class working folks were more influential. Look at French Provincial, also frequently referred to as French Country, for some beautiful ornamention.
Across the pond, right here in River City, the Newport School was doing what many (except the English and French) consider to be the richest furniture ever made. Job Townsend and John Goddard were developing a style that included less ornamentation but what ornamentation they were doing was bold and large, not the girly stuff of the French and Queen Anne-sters of England. This trend led to further simplification in Philadelphia. Wallace Nutting has his "Furniture Treasury" trilogy that is obscenely priced but the best treatment of American furniture and ornamentation out there.
As far as technique...I can't really help you out there unless you take a trip to the wilds of Montana. Sharpening is the first thing to learn and in person I can teach it well but written words will only discuss principles which are vital but, by the very nature of the medium, leave technique aside. It's practice that makes sharp tools once you understand the principles that make carving tools work well. The only book on technique I own is "Manual of Traditional Woodcarving" which does a fair job of covering the topic. As you can imagine I don't read many books on carving unless asked to review them and even that avenue has been sparse of late, perhaps I was too hard on them.
Here's the address of the page Howard mentions. http://www.furniturecarver.com/carving.html in which I've made my best attempt at answering a few of the questions I've been asked the most. It's an ongoing thing.
I know that Nora Hall has classes and I hold her skill in the highest regard. I offer nothing in the way of formal classes (well, coat and tie) but in the future I may put together a few weekend sessions.
Lee
I've done quite a bit of embellishments on furniture over the last 10 years. I got a couple of beginner how to books, and practiced a few patterns. It really depends on what you want to carve, florals, vines, leaves etc. I have a book of patterns I bought a few years back, in hardcover, and it is still a resource for me today. It was by a woman author. I will post the name and author once I get home. I posted a picture of a staircase in the gallery, which I carved using lots of the patterns in that book.
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