Wood Filler is the next best thing to have for any wood carving enthusiast I must say. I found this tube at Daiso and thought it would be a great supplement to aid my carving. And indeed it is.
There are times when the pressure to shape the wood is too great and little chunks come off, the Wood Filler is then used to smoothen out the mini craters. And after sanding down and paint added, you can’t even tell there was a mini crater in the first place! I love it.
Now that I am carving bigger pieces with the Meranti wood from Aunty Dearest, I am unsure how to categorize them. As you know, there are the Citizens, Superheroes, Monuments and Friends of Gigglesville, and each piece is labeled and recorded. Those who leave Gigglesville are granted passports to enable the migration.
Then there are the Gnomes who have grown in numbers and are now in their own hamlet, Gnomie-wood. Certain pieces like the Superheroes and Monuments stay put but I am still undecided whether the Gnomes can leave, I like them too much. We shall see.
Now these pieces, the giant Citizens are putting me in a bind. They look like the Citizens of Gigglesville but they are not Citizens because of their size nor are they Monuments because they are single pieces, not stacked up. See my predicament?
Maybe I should create another new category. Besides these differences, they also have a felt cloth underneath, making them more like paper weights than anything else!
Hmm… I have to sort this out soon.
After much thought, I decided to repaint the two-tier Monument. From its original of being all dark brown, I thought one species being bronze might look more regal. And I think it does.
I then tested on a three-tier Monument. Compared to an earlier piece looking colourful and very playful, the brown/bronze/brown version looks more serious and monumental. At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong to paint all these up.
The carving is in full swing! And the supplies need to be replenished. I was able to get these items last week during the slow work week to add to my stock – new gesso, gloss varnish, new colors and of course more balsa which I still need for the regular sized Citizens! I thought it would be a change to try several different brands of supplies from my usual.
And I think it’s exciting to see what comes out from the new colors especially the solid bronze. Stay tuned.
Last week, I took a big plunge and attempted my biggest piece ever! All these while, the biggest I have done are four-inch tall carvings, Halloween Owl, Dinky and the first giant Gnome, from ready sizes of the basswood.
Now this chunk is two pieces of Meranti glued together to become a towering 7.5 inch block. An ugly block to begin with but it’s not stopping me, even with the outline drawn and redrawn for a better proportion.
Within three days, I managed to complete the piece and the biggest Gnome ever in Gnomie-wood was ‘born’. It’s seven inches tall after sanding down and towers over the rest. It’s just simply adorable. Love it.
Three weeks ago (before the laparoscopic surgery) on a hot Sunday morning, the carving began. This latest Monument is different from the earlier pieces in many ways, the most obvious being the choice of wood – Meranti versus balsa. Then it’s the characters on the totem pole.
Previous pieces have different species of Citizens stacked up. This piece has only one species, looking the same yet different in their expressions. And it wasn’t easy to execute because being a denser wood, it was quite a challenge to shape the smaller area of curves and crevices. Definitely different from shaping a single big Citizen.
Patience is the key I guess. And at the height of this excitement, I overlooked having a platform like the others for this new piece. Oh well. Every piece is unique in its own way.
When I was recuperating at home last week, the itch to carve got the better of me. As I couldn’t push myself to read and painting up the little Citizens and Baby Whale was very quick, I started carving on Friday when I felt I was strong enough to handle my tools.
This piece is another test piece and took three days to complete. A little different from my other original pieces, this is a copied character. I borrowed M2’s plushie, Apeach, a Kakao Friends Muzi series character and thought that it would be a good challenge test piece.
I wanted to see if I can emulate an existing 3D character with my carving ability. From an initial 2D outline on the wood to carving the real thing into a shapely 3D character, it’s not as easy as I thought! A lot of visualising and planning despite having the plushie in front of me.
I take heart that I was able to shape the body and carve away as much wood as possible without breaking any limbs. Unlike Dinky the Dinosaur who had chopstick limbs added on, Apeach has its limbs intact. Although there were some kinks and unevenness, the wood filler was able to fix these.
I am pleased with my effort.
I have become a slow poke. After leaving the hospital on Tuesday, I find myself walking ever so slowly. Obviously the surgery area hurts, so does the shoulder and breathing, common after a laparoscopic surgery because of the leftover carbon dioxide in the abdomen.
Thankfully it’s only the right shoulder that hurts and it should subside within a few days while the wound area may take longer, depending on individual. Looks like I have to take things slowly literally. But I should walk more if possible to release all that trapped gas. And I find sleeping at an angle works better than laying flat on my back.
Plenty of rest, no exertion (this means no carving!) and no strenuous activities (no gym or golf until I am fully fit). Maybe now is a good time to catch up with all my reading. Being a slow poke does have some benefits.
The one thing Hubby and I have been doing quite constantly is online shopping. Week in, week out, he’d buy something and I would too. Most of the time, he would buy air plants and I would buy things related to carving save for that one time, a toy for official pet number one and an accessory for M2.
I thought I topped it when my purchase of the workbench came in the biggest box ever. Until his purchase arrived a few days later.
An air-condition unit box. My… My… At 32” long, 18″ deep and a foot wide, what did he buy?
A staghorn fern! Gosh, I guess he won the battle of the boxes this time.
The carving experiments have taken shape and color! Citizen on a Tree is looking good despite the flat head. The flat head Gnome was painted much earlier and two nights ago, I finally painted up the Citizen.
These few days, carving has been slow because I had to work late, an unusual busy run which is good and I shouldn’t complain.
I hope this weekend, all the queued up pieces will take shape too. Can’t wait for the weekend.
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