Carving Byzantine Acanthus Leaf 6

Building a Byzantine acanthus in three layers is gluing two more pieces of wood onto the carved first leaf, then shaping all three as one. The middle piece gets a bowl carved into its back, just for the shadow. The top piece comes from the scrap I said not to throw away, and it gives the leaf its true height.

Do you want a deep, dark shadow under the top of your leaf? Do you want the joint to vanish, so people think the whole thing was carved from one block? Then the work in this lesson starts on the backs of the boards, and the glue comes after.

I filmed this lesson with a class in the room. You will hear how deep the second bowl goes and why it stays shallow, where the third piece comes from, and which glue I like for it.

What lesson 6 does to the stack

• Leave the last 51 mm (2 in) of the stem alone on the first leaf. No undercut there.
• Keep the bowl in the second piece a little shallower than the one before.
• Dish it across the wood grain.
• Save your cut-out pieces, because one of them becomes the third layer.
• Glue with plain Titebond or Titebond II, and you can carve again in half an hour.
• Clean the marker off, and the joint blends right in.

What are the three layers of this Byzantine acanthus?

The first layer is the leaf you have been carving since lesson 1. Back then I explained that in Byzantine work they didn't glue the top piece on. They used some kind of tacks, so it could pop off really quickly, and later on Orthodox churches used screws from the backside. In my case I'm just going to glue it. I'm not going to take it apart.

The second layer is a new piece with a bowl scooped out of its back. The third layer is the piece I told everybody not to throw away. We can actually add another layer, I said, if you want to, and do the true Byzantine height.

In lesson 5 a student asked if this was medium relief. No, that is a high relief, I said. We're using just three quarters of an inch (19 mm) on top, but most of the time it would be thicker. It would be two inches, about 51 mm, for the upper layer, and it would give a bigger head.

Why carve a bowl into the back of the second layer?

For the shadow, and for nothing else. Again, the backside is only for the shadow's sake. I scoop a bowl in the middle of the back, glue the piece on top of the first leaf, and there will be a really deep shadow underneath.

On the second layer we start from the backside and create a dome on the inside. Back in lesson 5 I talked about the gold leafing and the inside, and how that creates the dome and the shadow effect. It just creates a really thick, heavy shadow. Just beautiful.

This part is quick. We don't need to glue the piece down to carve it, so all we have to do is scoop out. With a clamp, you can clamp it.

On one side of the back I was really careful. I stopped at a spot and took out only about a quarter inch (6 mm) there.

How deep should the second bowl go?

Less deep than the first one, so don't go too deep in the middle. We still make the dish, the bowl inside, but don't go all the way, because we need the meat. It ends up a bit shallower than what we did on the first layer.

The upper part needs that meat. We'll create concaves and convexes up there later.

A student asked me if a three-layer true Byzantine piece should have the bowl go deeper on the second layer. I wouldn't. We're still just after a shadow, and we're still going to do a really good blending. Go deeper and there's a chance you get through, so there's no reason. But we'll see. We can probably deepen it later on if we need to.

It's the same rule I gave in lesson 2, back on the first layer. Don't spoon it. We need that material for the later development.

Which way does the bowl go, with the grain or across it?

Across it. We use just the same tools, and when we're dishing out that bowl, we carve across the grain, not with the grain.

A few minutes into it I asked the class to look at the screen for a second. That's what we're after. We are channeling all the way through and then barely hit this side, but there's still a channel right there. A little cleanup is fine. I'm going to clean mine.

Which part of the first leaf stays untouched?

Two inches of the stem. At the start of this lesson I stopped everybody. Right at the end of the stem, don't do anything, don't touch that area, approximately two inches (51 mm) from that end. Don't undercut.

I'm glad I stopped before it was too late. I asked if anybody had made that mistake. Good, I said. I make all the mistakes.

So that area is untouchable, and we carve only from there on. The rest of the back doesn't have to be perfect, because it's the backside, and we get a chance to refine the edges a little later.

How does the pattern get onto the second piece?

I take my plastic, lay it over the leaf and trace the black lines I placed. Really important for me to get as close as possible to those lines. If you followed my pattern, what I'm drawing should work on your piece also.

Next we take the second piece. Please don't mix the face. That part is the face in my case, and the pattern goes on the backside. Carbon paper is probably a good idea here. Well, actually, I don't even need that, I said. I'll probably just draw through.

You could do the back later on. But it's a lot easier to clamp now, if you take care of the backside right away.

I wrote the word bowl on the back and asked the room, am I spelling that correctly? Put an F on the front if you wish. I saw people make that mistake, mixing the face with the back. It just sometimes gets intensive.

Where does the third piece come from?

From the scrap. Remember, I said do not throw away the cut-out pieces. Now we cut a round piece, this section, and once we're done with the backside, we glue it on top. Or that section right here, I said. It's even better. And then we're going to do the true height.

The easiest way is to skip the plastic and just trace the existing piece, then scroll it out.

I cut another piece and left it a little longer, just in case. I want to make sure it blends really nicely. After that I glue it on top and clamp it. We might need more clamps.

What each piece gets in this lesson

Piece	Work	Then
First, the carved leaf	The last two inches (51 mm) of stem stay untouched, with no undercut	Glued with the other two right away
Second piece	A bowl in its back, shallower than the first	Shadow under it, and meat for the shapes above
Your third piece	Scrolled from saved scrap, left a little longer	Gives the true height

Which glue do you use for stacked carving layers?

Titebond, any Titebond. Titebond II will do. I don't like Titebond III for this project. For the outside it's good, but it just takes too long to dry. With Titebond original or Titebond II, half an hour and you already can carve.

I said the same on the Greek acroterion, about a different job, the glue that goes straight out of the bottle onto the work piece. I like Titebond II. It's drying quickly. And Titebond III takes just too long sometimes.

With the hazelnuts I went further. Any wood glue will work there, any PVA glue, but I use Titebond II, not III and not the original. I just had better luck with it. Titebond III is really good for the outside, but it will leave a black mark once you carve it away. In this Byzantine class I allowed the original too.

People argue about hide glue against yellow glue. In another acroterion lesson I said I like Titebond II particularly. A really strong glue, and I think if they had that glue in the 17th or 18th century, they definitely would use it.

When do all three pieces get glued?

Right away, all three together. I glued the second piece onto the first leaf, with the third on top, and then I started carving.

The stack has to go back on paper later, the way the first leaf was held in lesson 1. Mine got glued to my piece of paper anyway, and I said that's okay. I'll use it like that and re-glue it later.

It's time to put a signature inside, or anything else you want, before you glue. During lesson 1 I mentioned a bee, or whatever you want, or your signature, and said people wouldn't even know how in the world you did it. The leaf will seem done from one piece.

In lesson 9 I came back to it. You can even put it into the first layer, from solid, without placing anything on top, and it would be really challenging to understand how you did that.

What shape should the glued stack take?

Round, with a beautiful arc and no straight lines. It's supposed to be 3D now. When you look at the side, don't create the stupid movement. It should be a really nice transition downhill. Remember the arabesque idea.

Pretty much we're creating roundness. It looks like a claw going like that. When it didn't make sense to the room, I went and found a picture.

This one is actually from the solid piece, not exactly what we're doing. But see, it goes like this and turns back. A second carving came next. Take a look at those acanthuses, I said, and see what they do. It goes that way and goes backward.

There's a different approach for how you finish that point. You can go upward, you can go downhill, you can just do it to the side. It all depends on how we decide to twist it.

This leaf twists, I said at the start of the course. It goes that direction, then up, up, up, and goes backwards, so it will be full 3D.

In my design course I call the arabesque a law, a really important law. Nothing is straight. There should not be any straight line, and everything is supposed to be connected to everything. Every movement has a swirl.

How much wood do you leave when you take the top down?

About 10 millimeters (3/8 in). When you take it down, leave approximately about maybe 10 millimeters from that point to that point. I said it twice, about three-eighths of an inch, and then smoothly, like an arch, the surface goes up.

I marked the line, just arching it. Really important to understand we are in 3D, and everything makes a big difference in how you do it. So step number one is to create that arch.

The upper part comes out too. We take that out and still keep that part a little high for now.

Which tool starts blending the layers?

A knife or a skew. From nothing, from absolutely nothing, you just start blending. I keep that side kind of high yet and start carving downhill. If you don't have a knife, you have a flatter tool, and it's exactly the same idea.

I followed that arc. I decided it needed to go a little lower, because I really need to blend everything.

The blending goes on in lesson 7, and the arc is still the point there. Make sure it's really flowing, I told the class, otherwise it's going to look stupid if it's a straight line.

Why don't you see the seam between the layers?

Clean wood hides it. In one spot I didn't clean up my marker, and you could see what happens. Where I don't have any marker, it blends really nicely. You don't even see the seam, and it looks like one solid piece.

What do you do when something breaks off?

This time I redesigned it. Oops, I broke something, I said, and I decided to redesign it instead of gluing it back. It meant to be. It's going to become a French acanthus, I joked.

All ten lessons sit on the course page, and Access to the school opens every one of them. The acanthus on this panel still has a long way to go.

Shall we carve?