kadmium

More attention to detail tonight. I defined the lips pretty well, because the inside of the mouth is going to be the low point of the compound arc that makes up the face. So to keep from making anything else too low, I needed to establish that line. After that was well set, I set about redefining the cheeks. They were too large and too tall, so lots of whittling down.

At one point Joe pointed at my mask and said “This guy’s made some nice lips. I can almost hear them going smmmmaaack (kissy-lip noise),” which was kind of flattering.

I’ve noticed a difference in the way I’m working compared to the more experienced carvers in the class. Out of ten students, four of us are working on one of the “Good Man/Bad Man” masks. The others are removing large pieces of the masks with saws and marking lines with rulers to make sure that everything is symetrical. I’m just carving. I find a line and go with it. It’ll be interesting to see how they all turn out.

Oh yeah. Another new tool, another minor injury. Tonight I was using a crooked knife. To imagine how a crooked knife is used, lay your right hand down on a surface, palm up. The knife goes in your hand with the blade toward the pinky and the point of the blade pointing up. Now, with your hand still flat on the table, pivot your wrist from left to right. Okay, that’s the basic motion, but you only cut in one direction at a time, so either on the forward stroke or the reverse stroke. The idea is not to push too hard on the blade — you want it to move smoothly through the wood, so you’re not taking off great hunks of wood at a time. You also have to be careful where you put your holding hand (the one steadying the mask).

Bearing all that in mind, what I did was dig in really hard to get a big chunk on a reverse stroke with my holding hand crossed under my cutting arm (make sense?). Naturally, when the knife came free of the wood, I had way too much pressure on it and wound up with the blade in the pinky of my holding (left) hand. Sigh. Not stitches-worthy, but annoying.

One other thing that I’ve found is that I’m pretty good at switching hands. I can guide a gouge almost as well with my left hand while using a mallet in my right hand as the other way around. In some ways, I’m actually better in that configuration on the detail work.

Tonight I am at Daniel's and Mary's house. I am showing them the web site. I will read all your notes when I get home.

Comment posted by david | March 15, 2002 08:16 PM