bunn

I try to make a carved decoration from each year's Christmas tree. This year's tree was a Nordmann Fir, and I really hope that next year we can find a different species, because the wood was both very hard, and very splintery. Not a fun wood to carve, and although the tree held its needles well, it had almost no scent, and I think the scent is one reason for having a wooden tree.

This is what it looked like when I'd just taken the bark off: it was wet, and it was kind of crumbly and yet at the same time I had to sharpen my chisels a lot. I think possibly I tried working it when it was a bit too green, it did get better as it began to dry, but I've definitely had wood that was much nicer to carve green.

And here's the final version: a puffin on one side...

And on the other side a sea-sunset, using the grain of the tree to make the sun. It was very hard to get the edges of the waves free of spiky bits.

I did it! I got the 2017 carving made before the end of 2017!

This Christmas tree turns out to have quite dense, tough wood, and I was quite glad I'd chosen only a thin piece to carve. I didn't have any great ideas about what to carve, so I just chopped bits off and found after a while that I had made a twirly snake. Then it looked like there was a sort of blob left on the top, and Pp suggested I make it into an apple and make it Garden of Eden themed, so that's what I tried to do. The bit sticking up is more or less apple-tree-leaf shaped. So, now next year I definitely only have one carving to make, not two. I wonder if I'll remember that in Dec 2018.

And a written thing: I was trying to write Quenta Narquelion as a story entirely from Ghost Feanor’s point of view but it turns out that the downside to a single POV is that you don’t get to answer questions about when other people work things out? Who knew? This writing thing is so complicated. POV switching is the way to go, honestly, writing just one POV starts to feel like being stuck inside a box after a while.

Anyway, someone asked about when it was that Maedhros worked out that he was being followed by Ghost Feanor wandering around Beleriand like a creepy ghost stalker, and I started replying and then I had to go away and make a stew and when I got back I’d mostly written this in my head, so here it is: As One Who Returns From The Dead

Happy New Year all!

I bought this year's Christmas tree from Bohetherick Farm: I think it's a Nordmann fir: a very nice compact tree with a good shape to the trunk. I had to squelch through the mud to find it and Rosie had to endure an excessively friendly springer spaniel. It's almost exactly the right height without having to chop any bits off too, though that does mean that I don't have a chunk of the trunk to carve with. I've sort of lost track of the number of carvings made from previous trees now, but there are quite a lot of them. I have taken a lower branch off to make the 2017 carving, but haven't started work on it yet.

( Read more... )

What else has happened? Oh yes, we went to see The Last Jedi, and it was surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much to be honest, but it had a lot of plot and felt like it was properly part of the original movie series somehow.

A rather belated Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

It's been a few years since we went out and bought a Christmas tree, but this year we went out into the garden and found that it had been gardened so thoroughly that there were no reasonable-sized holly trees left. So we bought this fir tree - I think it's a noble fir. I feel faintly guilty, although really it is no different to buying, say, a cabbage. Fortunately, the cats are all old and staid now, so I don't have to worry too much about them climbing it.

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"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings--
I've stolen this clever update format from

alitheapipkin

Doing
One longer walk and one short one today in bright sun under blue skies, plus I filled the garden bin with clippings, which always gives me a feeling of having achieved.

Thinking
Rather guiltily that I meant to try to do a couple of hours or so of work this weekend, but have not. And also that I should have phoned my mother, but I have not done that either. Possibly should rename this section 'vague guilts' as it appears my thoughts are not very profound.

Reading
( Read more... )

Watching
The first episode of 'Childhood's End'. Good ending!

Making
( Read more... )
Writing
( Read more... )

Here's a tiny wooden Aragorn I have made for

lindahoyland. He's not quite three inches tall. I was terribly keen to carve him once I had the idea, because I thought Aragorn in his Ranger's outfit would work well in the style of a Lewis Chessman. He's come out a little less cartoonish than they are, but I am pleased with him. For one thing, he stands up! I find that quite hard to achieve: this is why many of my carvings are designed to hang up rather than stand up.

I agonised over which wood to use. I had almost settled on oak, for its durability, and I even cut a piece of oak for the job, but I kept looking at it and it was *just wrong*. So I went out and wandered around looking at trees, and realised that actually, I have the perfect tree for an Aragorn figure in the front hedge: Rowan.

It's not a long-lived tree, as trees go: it lives perhaps two hundred years - but it pops up in unexpected places from seed. It has white blossom like the White Tree of Gondor, the fruit has been used to flavour beer, it's a tree that hybridizes easily. It is sometimes called the Wayfarer's Tree, or the Traveller's Tree. And of course it is well known to have strong powers to ward off evil.

( Read more... )

I was thinking how to design the little Isle of Lewis chessman -style Aragorn I plan to make for lindahoyland, and trying to decide which wood to use (apple? holly? cherry? Maybe even hazel or ash. Or green oak? Although oak is awful hard on the hands when carved seasoned, it should be much easier if carved green and allowed to dry. And Aragorn seems quite an oak sort of person.).

Anyway, I was turning wood over in my head, and it occurred to me that I should also carve a set of Eregion carvings, in, OF COURSE holly! I could do a Celebrimbor, a Narvi, a Durin III, a Galadriel and a Celeborn (maybe not Celeborn. I just can't really like Celeborn, for some reason). Can't think of any other named characters in Eregion. Maybe just some generic Gwaith-i-Mírdain, if I don't run out of steam.

Fell over on this morning's dog walk and bashed my knee quite hard on a granite boulder. Seriously Ow. STILL Ow. Stupid boulders.

But at least it was sunny, so time to slaughter a tree and drag it into the house. This involved some serious sawing (note to self, really need new blade for the bow saw!) We chopped quite a lot off the bottom before we dragged it to the house, but once we'd got it there, it was clear that we had quite ludicrously overestimated. But that was OK. After all, it's easier to chop it off than stick it back on. More sawing required...

( Read more... )

Last year's holly Christmas tree turned out to have a little dragon sleeping inside it. A little dragon with a very twirly tail. He seems more of a Pratchett dragon than a Tolkien one to me.
( Read more... )

I went for a relief carving this year rather than a figure, cos relief carving is easier, and have made, on the one side, a Lonely Mountain, and on the other side, a dwarf

( Carving : front & back )

he tree was holly, so I've tried leaving the bark on the sides, although I'm not sure if it will fall off as the wood dries. It's quite a diddy little thing, only about an inch across, as the tree was pretty slender, and it does have a bit of an unintended curve to it that I should probably have tidied up if I hadn't decided to leave the bark on.

( Our Tree )

Merry Christmas all!

Last year's Christmas tree had quite a wiggle to its trunk. I wanted to catch that wiggle in the decoration that I carved from it. In my head this was a 'dancing' wiggle, and so I tried to make a dancing figure, to stand for Cottia dancing in this post-Eagle of the Ninth story that I wrote.

( Cut for carving photos and wittering )

Current Mood: cheerful

Today I have made 4 and a half jars of apple chutney. I still have a lot of apples and some vinegar, onions and sultanas left so I may make some more yet. My attempt to Eat All the Apples has failed : even eating 4 or 5 apples a day the lawn is covered in them.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

This weekend, my mother finally made it home after her broken hip. She's still walking on crutches and the leg is painful - not because of the hip, but because of the original problem that probably caused her to fall over in the first place. She has had pretty good care, I think, which is cheering. Note: if you want to break your hip, August is a good time to do it, because the busy time for hip-breaking is the winter. We still have her dogs, as she is not up to walking them yet. I don't know if they will both go back to her or not, but I'm leaving that decision to her. It's a bit of a pain having four dogs, but worse things happen at sea and all that.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: peaceful

After I posted those pictures of pretty hound knotwork, I noticed that Az was trying to be knotwork too. ( See pics )
I've also had a go at drawing an Eagle of the Ninth book-Marcus (young, with heavy eyebrows and big nose). This is him celebrating with his friend Cassius after winning the Legion's Saturnalia chariot race in the chariot that he borrowed from Cassius - that's why Marcus is wearing laurels, and both of them look a bit drunk. ( The pic )
( Sweff sweff! )

Current Mood: charcoaly

( One in fir and one in holly )

Current Mood: creative

( Green Woodworking Course )

( The Tools )

In other news:( The Augean Saab is dealt with )

( The Village Show )

Current Mood: cheerful

Our 2008 Christmas tree had a little hound inside it:

I have an idea for a holly and ivy design for the 2009 tree, a bit more traditionally festive than most of my carvings so far!

Current Mood: festive

( Last year's Christmas tree turned out to have an elephant inside it. )

Current Mood: carvy

Carving across the grain is now going better. I have remembered that the art is in making sure the design is all shallowly shelving cuts, not trying to force the chisel directly down. Also:

- make sure the chisel is very, very sharp.
- sort of pull it away as it moves sideways, so you get a slicing motion sideways as well as forewards
- keep an eye on the grain, and if the wood starts to tear even the least little bit, turn it round and slice at it the other way.
- don't use any force, work with the sharpness of the blade only.

Design was originally intended as a snowflake, but it appears there is no snowflake in this particular tree. It morphed in the direction of a star, and now seems to have turned into a sort of stylised angel. All seem like reasonable designs for a tree decoration, so that's all good.

I'm planning to use some of my Grandad's gold leaf to decorate it. The leaf has been sitting in a cupboard since approximately 1963 (or maybe earlier, I don't know!), but I think it probably keeps.

Current Mood: sniffly

It's about 20 years since I last attempted to carve into a cross section of a tree trunk - now I remember why I've not done it since. Every damn cut is across the grain and the whole thing is a nightmare of interspersed superhard bits and splinters.

Note to self: ALONG the grain. Along is good. Am wondering whether to chuck this dratted piece and start over.

Current Mood: annoyed

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bunn

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Page generated Jan. 4th, 2026 05:34 am

Entries tagged with carving

2024 carving

Twirly 2017 carving!

Christmas 2017

2 Carvings of 2015

Walrus-update

Tiny Wooden Aragorn

Carving idea

Festive preparations

Dragon-carving

This year's Christmas carving...

Ho ho ho

Dancing girl carving

Things made, Carving in Lime, family stuff.

Some drawn things (and an old carving)

Carvings : struggling across the grain

Green Woodworking and other rural activities

2008 tree carving

2007 tree carving

Across the grain 2

Across the grain

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January 2026

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