Beginner's Guide: How to Carve Handmade Woodcarvings

 

Handmade wood carving crafts combine the beauty of nature's materials and the ingenuity of manual carving and are loved by many. With the development of wood carving, more and more people have become interested in exquisite wood carving crafts and are looking for ways to learn wood carving techniques. After all, it is a very pleasurable thing to carve a lovely little wood carving yourself. If you are also a beginner learning wood carving, then this guide is a good one to have.

Step 1: Prepare the required tools

1. Basic Engraving Tools: 

As a beginner, you do not need to buy advanced carving tools that are difficult to handle like the masters do, but just some basic engraving tools will suffice. For example, a flat knife, small saw, pencil sharpener chisel knife of different widths, as well as V-shaped knife and U-shaped knife for carving details.

2. Auxiliary tools

sandpaper, brushes, clamps, pencils, sketch paper.

3. optional tools: 

as a beginner who is not very good at using various shapes of carving knives, you can prepare an electric carving pen.

Step 2: Design Draft

To make a wood carving craft, beginners first need to design a draft. According to their own ideas, find similar works and copy, draw on the draft paper. Because wood carving has many different carving techniques, wood carving draft is mainly divided into hollow relief, three-dimensional round carving and plane carving. Each of these three forms has different design ideas. Openwork is the most difficult, so it is recommended that beginners choose either three-dimensional round carving or plane carving.

1.Three-dimensional round carving

First of all, we need to draw the plan of the wood carving according to our own ideas, and then deepen the details. Because the round carving is a three-dimensional shape, although we draw a plan, but we need to build a three-dimensional drawing in our mind, in the draft drawing to mark out which areas need to be reserved for how much size.

2. Plane engraving

Plane engraving is mainly in a fixed size plate, according to the drawing of the pattern for carving can be, is the most simple, the most suitable for beginners of the engraving process. So in the sketch only need to mark out the size of the plate and depict the pattern you want to carve can be.

Step 3: Selection of materials

1. Material:

 beginners choose softwood, such as basswood, pine, poplar and other wood easy to carve. Remember not to choose hardwood for the first time, the material is too hard for beginners to carry out carving is easy to appear hand injury accident.

2. Shape and size: 

according to the draft map marking the size of the wood to choose to meet the requirements. If it is a flat carving, find the right size can be: if it is a round wood carving, you can go to look for some unique shapes of wood, such as a long strip of wood with forked branches to carve a long ribbon fish.

3. Appearance: 

there should be no obvious cracks and scars on the wood, otherwise the wood carving may have irreparable flaws after completion.

Step 4: Base shape

Roughly remove the excess wood from the wood by chiseling and cutting. After removing most of the wood, use tools to sand the rough basic shape according to the draft. During the sanding process, the volume of each part of the wood should be left to allow some room for the rough carving later.

Step 5: Rough and fine carving

The basic shape of the wood carving work is completed, and then you need to take out the ready carving tools, in the wood carving was deliberately left on the margin area for processing. Fine carving requires beginners to work on the fine details of the work to modify and carve, according to their own ideas to optimize the carving of the details of the part. Rough carving requires the beginner to continue shaping the overall shape of the wood carving with a wider carving knife.

Step 6: Polishing

After the carving work is completed, the overall work will have angular carving marks. If you want to preserve the original carving marks and give the carving a more natural look, you can skip this step and go straight to coloring the wood carving wax. If you want the overall appearance of the piece to be smooth and have a flowing aesthetic, you will need to sand it. Use sandpaper to sand the edges and corners, and then use a brush to clean up the wood shavings after the sanding is completed, and the overall carving of the wood carving is finished.

Step 7: Post-treatment (waxing)

After cleaning up the wood carving and making sure there is no debris on its surface, you can start the final waxing work. If you like the original color of the wood carving, you can use wood dye to highlight the wood grain of the wood carving and show the natural original color. If you like colorful wood carvings with rich visual effects, you can use acrylic paints to color the wood carvings, which will have a good decorative effect. Finally, oil wax, varnish and other paints are applied to create a protective layer for the wood carving.

Conclusion

By following the steps in this guide, beginners can quickly learn how to carve a wood carving craft and know the details and safe practices to pay attention to in each step. Beginners, go to choose a few suitable carving tools and start carving your first wood carving crafts, which will be a very interesting and fulfilling thing for you.

Why You Should Start A New Hobby In Time For The Summer

Hobbies are something that everyone needs to have in their life. They give you purpose and keep you entertained for as long as you need, as well as being a healthy distraction to just pass the time. And what better time to pick something new up now before the Summer is upon us?

It's been a long Winter, and whether or not you want to admit it, we have all been in a state of hibernation that has left us all feeling rather blue - but that's enough! It's time for a pick-me-up that will put you back on track and get you ready for the delicious sun that awaits. It's fine to feel a lack of motivation at times - it's completely normal, but you can only allow it to go on for so long until you decide enough is enough, and you want to be passionate about something again. This post may contain affiliate links.

Capture the beauty.

Photography is a stunning visual way of capturing all of the wonderful things around you, like the magical sunsets that paint the sky all different colours of the rainbow, and the wildlife that surrounds you when you take a walk through the park. This is why you should pick up a camera and get snapping. You don't need to have an expensive high-end camera to do that with either, just go with something easy to start out with and take it from there. The warmer things start to become, the more your environment will begin to flourish, so enjoy the transition that is to come. 

Ride the adventure.

Cycling is not only great for your body, getting it ready for the Summer attire, but it's also a wonderful way to encourage you to get outdoors and explore. There is so much to see around you that you may have always overlooked because you've never had the need to go down that path, or through those trees, but you'd be amazed to find what beauty awaits you. You don't have to venture off alone either, you can buddy up with a friend and make a whole day out of exploring, with a pit stop for some lunch and a refreshing beverage to wash it down with, as well as a giggle or two.

Start DIY'ing

I watch way too much HGTV and am always adding to my home improvements wish list. Summer is the perfect time to learn the basics of DIY at home. Making renovations to the home can prevent wildlife infestations. Being proactive about critter control in warmer months makes the home comfier than ever. Not to mention the pride you would feel from DIY'ing those projects around the house.

So stop thinking about what is to come, and instead choose something exciting to pass your time and discover a newfound thrill that you’ve always had waiting inside of yourself.

Create the sound.
Who doesn't envision spending their evenings sitting around a fire, roasting smores with a ukulele, playing some of their favourite tunes off musicianauthority? It's the ideal dream while being in the company of the ones you love most. So the sooner you start to learn a new instrument, the sooner you can make this happen. Just think, you will be able to create your very own music and share stories from the songs you've written. This is a very powerful tool that can touch so many people on a deeper level, and that's what makes it such a special thing.