Ruth
Description
Inspired by my love of the late Anne McCaffrey books about Pern and the wonderful illustrations of Michael Whelan. Michael was Anne's favourite illustrator because he was able to represent her dragons as she saw them. I too like Michael's illustrations so this in the form of fan art in homage to his illustration called Weyrworld.
This particular dragon is white which uniquely identifies him as being Ruth and in my version Jaxom his rider is not present.
This was particularly a challenge for me as this was one of the most complex carvings I have done to date. During the carving I made quite a few mistakes with the way in which the wings join onto the body which required recarving them to correct. This piece also taught me to think ahead about how it will be carved when laying it out at the start. For example a couple of adjustments that I would have made, knowing what I know now, would be to leave some more space between the left wing and the head as well as curve the tail, either to the left of lower down the rock face. In both cases it would have left me more room to get a chisel into the space to carve.
Details
Wood: Basswood also known as European Lime
Carving size: 8" * 5.8" * 1.1" (20.3cm * 14.7cm * 2.8cm)
Time
It took about 60 hours to complete Ruth from a plain block of wood.
Roses are Red
Description
As my first carving to be done live during a broadcast I wanted to choose a subject that I was confident of being able to create. Unfortunately it didn't quite turn out as expected. Not having my favourite Bass wood (European Lime) available I chose a piece of Ash that was an off-cut from a wall board. Ash is a very nice white wood capable of holding some nice detail. Ash though is tough to carve by hand and I wasn't really set up to deal with it so this is a very shallow relief.
During the course of a few broadcasts the viewers were keen to see the finished rose painted. This, done live on air, was the result.
Details
Wood: Ash
Carving size: 4.5" * 5" (11.4cm * 12.7cm)
Relief size: 5.25" * 8.6" (13.3cm * 21.8cm)
Time
Approximately 12 hours of time when into carving the rose with a further hour to paint it.