Letting the wood speak

When I carve with Cottonwood Bark I let the wood speak to me.  I have carved many little houses and no two are exactly alike.  That is because no two pieces of bark are alike.

Bark is easy on my arthritic hands and my recovering carpal tunnel problem.  I had a bunch of houses on the table to paint when I decided to show you all what the carving process is like.

First I look in my bag and get out a piece of wood.

Here is a blank…I saw a pillar in the front, a door with a window and a chimney, on the other side I saw a tree.

I mapped it out so you could see it.

See the P in the front?  The C is a chimney and there is a door with a window.

Then I began to carve out the chimney and made the roofline.

The pillar is always a bit difficult…sometimes you need a bit of glue to strengthen part of the pillar. You have to carve behind the pillar and remove lots of wood.

Almost done, the door is a bit big but I had room to make a nice window.  Later I will drill out the window and file it to the right shape.

Here is the tree and I had room for a funny shaped window…there are no rules that must be followed in bark carving.

The tree will look more like a tree when it is painted and my second thought was the window is in the chimney…oh well maybe is is just in a little room around the chimney area!

Before                                                   After

That is pretty much what I saw in this piece of wood.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my carving process.