Gone hoboing!!!

Lately, I have been doing a few hobos. They are good practice for doing complete figures, getting the proportions correct, working on placement of arms and legs for movement, and working on wrinkles. All three of those things are difficult and take practice. What better practice than a few hobos. 
     Anyway, I hope you like these guys.

Busy summer

Man, have I been busy since summer started. I finally finished the flooring, spackle and painting of my shop. The floor looks great (for used laminate) and makes the shop so much lighter than OSB flooring.

 So, now I can continue to focus on getting ready for the Nampa Arts and Crafts Festival in August. I have more than 80 carvings for sale, not including the Christmas ornaments. I have about 35 of those and need to do some more. I am doing a flying angel as well as a puppy in a stocking, plus the ones I have left over from previous years. I should have between 25 and 50 of each for the year.

So I have been doing the things that I think would sell. I purchased the Harley Refsal video "Figure Carving the Scandinavian Style with Harley Refsal", which is a very good instructional video on the flat-plane carving style. So I did a couple of those types of figures to practice. I like the style as it is very clean and has large flat planes rather than many thousands of facets.

I have been doing some dogs as they seem to sell well, and it gives me more practice for my beginner carving class on July 25. This one is patterned after one of Tom Wolfe's dogs in his book, although I added a few of my own touches.

 Then I finished another of my hobo carvings, another hobo chopping wood for a free lunch. This one came out better than the last one, I think.

So, back to carving for the show in August, plus the one in November, the Meridian Middle School Craft Fair. Hope to see you there!