Day 3 and we are now well over half way into the course. There still seems so much to learn before we can finish our puppets.
Today was mostly spent working on the head. The technique we are learning is called sketch carving. Using as wide (about 2.5cm/ 1" wide) single bevel, flat chisel, you make as few cuts as possible to get the overall shape. I really didn't think, I would like this style of working but I'm very much converted. Once the wood block is cut to a rough head shape on the band saw their are only 10 cuts made before you get a usable head. Its still very rough but has a charm of its own. I have cut out quiet a lot of heads at home, learning from books and YouTube but nothing has been as effective and simple as this technique
The class has few rules the main one is NO sand paper. This is really hard for me as all of the carving is normally done using a mix of hand and power tools with a lot of sanding to even out the shape.
In traditional Chinese puppet carving (which is what our course is based on) they only use 5 tools and no sand paper. All the smoothing and fine detail is done with exactly the same chisel as the carving. You hold the chisel like pencil and take very small amounts of wood away. It takes ages and I did start to fell as if I was going around in a circle, just is I smoothed one bit, I had to go back and re-smooth another. I think it will be worth it in the end.
In traditional Chinese puppet carving (which is what our course is based on) they only use 5 tools and no sand paper. All the smoothing and fine detail is done with exactly the same chisel as the carving. You hold the chisel like pencil and take very small amounts of wood away. It takes ages and I did start to fell as if I was going around in a circle, just is I smoothed one bit, I had to go back and re-smooth another. I think it will be worth it in the end.
If the head was not enough. I have also got slightly smaller feet ( if you read yesterdays blog,it makes sense) and hips, really massive hips, the puppet not me!. The hips are made in three parts. This is so you can change the direction of the wood grain in each part, to make sure they are as strong as possible. I have glued them together and they are in the vice ready for work tomorrow.
I think that it will be a long day tomorrow. As its the last full day, I plan to work until the collage closes at 10 just to make sure she is fitted together. I don't think she will be the most beautifully puppet I have made, but she will be fully functioning with perfectly working joints which is what I wanted to learn from this course.
Off to bed. No time for dreams to night just sleeping ready for a busy day.
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