Introduction

A famous painter, when asked, 'How do I learn to paint?' answered: 'Take a canvas, take a brush, dip the brush in the paint and start.' Similar advice can be given in all seriousness to the aspiring carver, for the best teachers in the world are practice and, of course, the strong urge to fashion something for its own sake.

In wood you have chosen one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most exacting media. If you are carving a design in which you are interested, if your tools are sharp, and the wood is moving smoothly away from the sharp edge of the tool like silk, wood carving is sheer pleasure. If, on the other hand, you are uncertain of your design, the tool is blunt, the wood splitting and ragging, and you are faced with a shapeless lump of timber, wood carving is then, without doubt, sheer misery. My main objective, therefore, in writing this book is to help you to design, and advisedly I put design first, and then to carve your designs in such a way that you create something really your own. It is important that in these days of mass production we do not lose sight of the inborn ability to use mind and hands together in personal creation.

Wood always retains something of its living quality. It is strong with the tensile strength of a fibrous material. It is infinitely varied in the qualities of density, weight and durability. Although vulnerable under certain conditions to fungi and insect attack, we know on evidence that wood has been carved for three thousand years and a few Egyptian wood carvings dating about 2600 b.c. are still extant. There is something about the very names of woods like ebony, snakewood, lignum vitae, that summons up thoughts of the dark forests and tropical shades where our ancestors started to carve in bone, wood and stone.

The qualities and sap life of timber mean that some under­standing is necessary in order to make the best use of this material. In the following chapters I have tried to give a guide to those who wish to carve in wood. The book does not cover carpentry and joinery. These skills can be of great value to the carver, and those who are also interested in construction would profit by lessons in general woodwork to be used in conjunction with carving.

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