Carving Byzantine Acanthus Leaf 2

Roughing depth on this Byzantine leaf is about 10 mm, three-eighths of an inch, of wood left standing above the surface. I keep it on the outside leaves and on the inside leaves. Eyeball it. You don't have to measure it, and parts of the board stay untouched.

You want the waste gone fast, and a big gouge will do that for you in this lesson. But you have to stop somewhere. On my acanthus leaf, a Byzantine ornament, the stop is a number, and I said it to the class again and again. I'll give you that number, the reason behind it, and the places on the board where you don't go at all.

What stays standing after the roughing

• Some 10 mm of wood stays up on the outside and the inside leaves.
• I judge it by eye, with no ruler.
• That wood is saved for undercutting later, for deeper shadows.
• Roughly three inches of the blank stays untouchable until the second piece goes on.
• The biggest #9 gouge you own does the work, with a slicing cut every time.
• The leaves slope downhill, but you don't spoon them.

Where does the roughing stop on this leaf?

Short of the bottom. We are not going down to the bottom on those outside leaves. Keep approximately three-eighths of an inch on the sides, so about 10 millimeters, all around. How much exactly? I don't know. About 10 millimeters on the sides, and exactly the same thing on that other side.

The inside leaves come down to 10 mm as well. Same idea, inside and outside, just going downhill, and I showed it slowly in the second video. From nothing, from the surface, I get closer to the line, and I go to that 10 mm mark.

Each one of those leaves gets carved, but none of them goes lower than 10 mm. Eyeball it. The curve near the very bottom keeps approximately 10 mm for now as well, and later on we'll just blend it to nothing.

Why leave that much wood?

For the undercutting. We're going to leave a room for undercutting, and the undercutting will create an even deeper effect with the shadows. It will look light and beautiful and really attractive. The undercutting itself comes later in the course.

I said it again when a student asked me, is this about the right size? Don't scoop in, don't create the concave inside, because we still need meat for the future development. Near the end of that video I put it a little more plainly. We need that material for the later development, because we're still going to work on the concaves and convexes.

Do you measure the 10 mm?

Not with a ruler. I eyeball it, and in video three I said it plainly about the dish. You cannot measure it. You can only detect that.

Which part of the board gets no tool at all?

Two places. The first is an area of about two and a half to three inches, measured from one point on the blank, and I asked the class not to cross it. All of that we are going to carve, but together with the second piece, so right now it is untouchable.

The reason is the glue. Once the second piece is glued on top of the background, we blend it to nothing, pretty much into the background. It will look like it's flowing from the background and growing up.

The second place is inside the black lines. I drew a black line border where I'm going to glue. Those two inside leaves start from that black line, and the only place we don't touch is inside those two rails, inside those two black lines.

I was strict about it from the first minute. Please do not touch that area. Otherwise it's not going to be solid glue, and then it looks weird. The third video has it once more, about one point on the curve. Do not touch beyond that point, we really need that curve, and when we glue, it makes a big difference.

Same warning in the next video. This section is no-no, I said. No bueno. I mean, it is bueno, but not touchable.

Which gouge does the roughing?

Your biggest number 9. Whatever number 9 you have, the biggest one. Mine is three-quarters of an inch, 19 mm or so, and the one in my hand was 20 mm. A number 9 is a half round, as I reminded the class from the day before.

If you have less than three-quarters, it's okay. You can do that. An eight is okay too. One student had a number 9, but only a 10 mm (3/8 in) one.

You could use even bigger. I brought my number 11, one of my favorite tools, and I could get the job done much quicker with it. That one is 30 mm, about 1 3/16 in.

I said the same thing in the Modern Acanthus class. Whenever a bigger tool can get the job done, just grab the biggest tool. I have some tools of three inches or even bigger, 3 1/8 in to be exact, about 79 mm, and if I can fit that one, I use it. On that leaf it was a number 9 at 20 mm.

Before the first pass, the blank goes in the bench dogs, pinned right there on the bench.

What is bosting?

Bosting is what this stage is called, in England at least. You just bost that thing. And don't worry if it looks rough, because it's just the shaping.

A student asked me if it was okay to take these big chunks. Oh, absolutely, I said. It's just the bosting. Step number one is to establish the shape, and the details don't start yet. It shouldn't take you too long, either.

In my Modern Acanthus class I gave stage number one the same name, and I added that it's not real English, not American anyway.

Why do the details wait?

Shape always comes first, the overall shape and the main movements, and only then do we concentrate on details.

Here is the problem I see. People work on details first, and then they think, oh, it's too late, I've got the details, and they don't want to take them off.

So on this leaf the outside leaves go kind of downhill, and the inside leaves the same way. The whole thing flows, a three-dimensional flow, without touching the lines or the borders.

How does the slicing cut help the roughing?

It takes the material out quickly. We call it the slicing cut in the woodcarving world, and I called it one of the most important cuts. A lot of people place the tool and just push. That's no good. No bueno.

When you place your tool on the board, you rotate to one of the sides, left or right, and start. I did it really slow for them. I place the tool on its left side, and while I'm pushing, I create a rotation movement, and that slices it. You get a lot less resistance in the wood, just by the logic of how it works.

Direction is your choice, left to right or the opposite way. Here I started at the left corner and went right, because that's the side I escape to. See how quickly I can take the material out? I can establish my shape really quickly.

The slow motion hides it, but on every pass I make a rotation. I named it again in the second video. It's called the woodcarver's cut, a slicing cut, and every pass I make is one. Try it slowly first.

Where does your second hand go?

On the blade, always, as close as you can get it to the tool's edge. Don't hold two hands on the handle, it's not right, and it's not paint, like painting with the brush.

That way you have a lot more control. Your hand sits solidly, close by. Then the muscles of your hand and your palm do the work, you feel control, and you don't get tired. It becomes like an extension of your hand. It feels natural.

Later on I said it again while the class worked, make sure you're placing your hands solidly. Someone told me they were a little tired. Oh, no, I said, not tired, you can't be tired.

Every spot on this board, in one place, with the video it comes from.

Why not spoon the outside leaves?

We still need meat. A student asked if the work was about the right size, and I said yes. Then I added the warning. Don't scoop in, like a spooning. Go downhill, but without the spooning, and don't create the concave inside.

Less than a minute later I saw a mistake on someone's piece. Please keep that sloping, I told them. Don't spoon it. Don't dig like a dish in this area, and don't create any concave, on that side or that side. We need that material for the later development. Please, if it's not too late.

Spooning has its own page in the Grape Onlay course.

How deep does the dish go?

Kind of deep. We go almost all the way, but not all the way. Be careful. We leave 10 mm or so above the surface, and the black line stays untouched while you dig.

I start at one spot and lower it to that same mark, without touching my black line. See, I am rotating all the time. No matter which pass it is, I'm still rotating it. Someone asked about the depth inside. The same depth, I said, 10 mm up from the surface.

Now look carefully. When I started to dig, I went across the grain. The grain of the wood runs that way, and my gouge has to carve across it. I stop short of the far side. I attack from the opposite side, with exactly the same idea, toward the center, and again without touching the black line.

Don't dig too deep. When you dig inside, go in and then escape out slowly. Escape it, don't dig in.

The space between the dish and the next section comes out too, blended on a slope, high spot down into low spot. I do it with the same gouge, going around the black line, carefully, without digging too deep. And don't spoon close to the black line, otherwise it's going to look weird. It really has to be nice dishing.

What do you do when the grain bites?

Rotate the piece. Feel what the grain does, and if it's working against you, change the position and work the opposite direction. In my case it looked better to attack from the other side, the way the grain works.

Don't be lazy about rotating the piece. It's really important. Sometimes we have a tendency to skip it, but it's a good idea to rotate and attack from different directions, especially on the small pieces.

I'm not explaining the grain yet, on purpose. First I want you to understand the problem. Once you experience the problem, then I can answer the question about how to work with the grain.

How much wood do I keep back on other carvings?

Meat is a word I use sometimes, and it shows up far from this leaf. In workshop 23 of the Venice Room I held back on one section, because I might do some movement inside it. I need some meat, I said. Not meat, but material. But sometimes I call it like I need meat.

Two minutes later, with a number 5 and then a number 2, I said why. I left that part much thicker in the preliminary passes, because now I was setting the final form, and I don't want to go back and redo it. The Venice Room also has a page on wood for a concave.

For the antique style rosette, in workshop 2, I left a section on purpose with the knife in my hand. I need some meat, I need some wood, otherwise it's easy to chip it.

The olives on the lily box got the same care. Not that far yet, I said. I still had to work the backside, they were fragile even then, and taking a lot more material would make them even more fragile. That would be a big mistake.

And on the Modern Acanthus I marked the high spots in orange. Don't touch it, I said. Don't even think about it. Stay away.

What gets finished in this lesson?

The dish. After the roughing out, that area is going to be finished, because we won't be able to finish it later. So I treat that section as a finished product.

I take a flatter gouge, a number 6 at 20 mm, three-quarters of an inch. Even with that tool I slice, and I clean those facets, carefully, attacking from all the sides without digging in. Escape before it goes too deep.

This is Leaf 2 of Carving Byzantine Acanthus, with Leaf 1 before it and Leaf 3 after it. The gouges get a course of their own in All about tools, and so does sharpening.

Get your big gouge out and keep your 10 mm. Access to the school opens all three videos of this lesson, the class talking and all.

Shall we carve?