Carving Grape Onlay 1

Cleaning up a carving happens at two different times. Every grape gets its side carved clean while I make it. The rest waits. Anything messy around the grapes can wait for later, and the final look of the whole piece waits until the very end.

Have you ever carved one part of a piece nice and clean, then kept working on everything around it? Did that clean part slowly go dark under your hands? Then let's talk about when to clean. On my grape onlay I'll show you the one spot that can't wait, the spots that can, and what my own hands do to the wood.

What I clean now and what can wait

• Each grape's side gets carved clean as I make it, because after an outline it is impossible to clean.
• Mess around the grapes can wait.
• A knife cleans the triangle where grapes meet, right away or later, whichever you like.
• A square where four grapes meet still cleans up, only a little harder.
• The final look of the whole piece waits until the end, since touching the wood turns it dark.

Why carve the side of a grape clean right away?

Later is too late for that side. Another mistake I see is people taking a tool straight down and going around the grape to outline it. There is absolutely no good reason to do that, and you don't want to go 90 degrees down. A grape will be a sphere, so no outlining. Outline it anyway and you damage the side. Then it will be impossible for you to clean it later.

Really important.

It's just impossible to clean those afterward, so it is better to carve them clean from the beginning.

I don't try to get the whole shape at once, though. Little by little I go around and set the oval shape, slicing with only the corner of the tool. One side clean, then the next. The messy areas next to it don't worry me, because I can always clean those later. What I worry about is how clean the side of the grape comes out. In real life you sometimes don't see where two grapes connect, and there is a temptation to go straight down between them. But think about how you're going to clean inside those triangles. Wood carving is a little more about stylizing than about the reality of life.

What happens when the gouge goes in at 90 degrees?

A lot of people just push the tool in. It's a big wedge. Even if you have a low bevel it's still a wedge, and you drive it into those fibers with real force. You are still carving, sure, but you're pushing the fibers and fighting that wood really hard.

In basswood that is not a big deal. With a harder wood it is. Either way, it's a good habit to start with a slice right away.

This is how I slice. I never start with the flute up at 12 o'clock. I lay the tool over at about 45 degrees, start with the flute at about 11 o'clock and finish the pass at 1 o'clock. The other way round works too, it doesn't really matter. You start on one side and finish on the other side with a turn of the tool.

Even with the corner of the tool, I don't push down. I put the corner in and make a slicing motion, and on camera you can see how clean it gets. None of my passes on these grapes go 90 degrees down. Each one aims toward the next grape.

Let me tell you a story from the last part of the lesson. I was shaping one grape, set my tool too straight and didn't slice right away, and the wood inside came out loose. Fine, in that case, because that piece had to go anyway. But you try to avoid it.

One more honest thing. On camera I don't turn the panel all the time, just because of where the camera sits. Later, in lesson 12, I pick up a number 7 at 14 mm again and say my tool has to be super sharp.

Why aim for triangles where the grapes meet?

The meeting point between grapes is where it gets complex. It has to be a triangle. Try to avoid a quad, a square, and aim for the triangles.

I dig each triangle with only the corner of my tool. I place the corner just inside the triangle, this side, that side and that side, and excavate the chip away. Then I can see the triangle, and that's what I'm after. When you see your triangles clearly, start with them. After that I go from the outside inward to get the true sphere.

Four grapes in a square is not a big deal. I got two grapes here and two grapes there on this panel, four in a row, and that area I could not avoid. It's still possible to clean it. A little harder, though, so I went to my knife.

When does the knife go into a triangle?

Whenever you like. If a triangle comes out too deep, you can always grab a knife, get inside it and clean. In part two I said that was a little too early, but it's always possible. Later on I said it again. You don't have to do it right away, but if you want to, you can.

Another idea is to make a tight spot darker instead of cleaner. Where a really small grape would leave a triangle, I can excavate a spot for the shadow. I already had one on this panel. It's a really dark spot that I excavated deep, and it reads as shadow.

For that I use a plug cut, and the tool is a number 9 at a quarter inch, about 6 mm. I use a lot of plug cuts in my Venetian style carving. Not too deep here. Another grape is supposed to sit somewhere inside, and with that shadow in place this grape looks like it could be growing from underneath.

Why does a carving go dark while you work on it?

Hands do it.

Near the end of the lesson I said you could start making some finished shapes now if you wish. You'll still have to clean them later, though, because you'll keep touching the piece while you work on other details, and it will become black. Oxidation happens. Patina. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not, especially if your hands are not too clean. That is why I don't really worry about the final, final, final look until the end. Right now I'm just framing my house.

I said it again in lesson 3 of this course. I would not clean it at once, because you'll still touch it, and the reaction between body oils and the wood makes it look somewhat dark. That's why I clean only at the end. Besides, maybe I won't like something, and if I change it I'll spend too much time.

Someone asked me once, in my questions and answers lessons, whether I protect a finished section from dust and hand oil while I carve the next one. It depends on the finish. If the piece will be painted or stained, I'm not doing anything. Dust is no problem, because I only use hand tools in my shop.

Body oils are not the biggest problem. It's oxidation. You can have absolutely clean hands, and I clean mine all the time, but when you touch the wood a reaction happens inside it and it becomes darker.

In a class on a modern acanthus, I let everybody feel my piece and didn't say a word, because in every class everybody touches it. You feel more with your hands than you see with your eyes. But so many people came and rubbed on my piece that I ended up with a black spot. That's not dirt. It's oxidation, and I don't like how it looks.

How rough should a carving look before any cleaning?

Really rough, and that's absolutely fine. I split this project into three stages, as always. Stage one is roughing out to get an idea of the 3D movement, blocking in and setting the high spots without any details.

The biggest problem I see time after time, in pretty much every class I teach in person, is people working on details at the beginning.

That's no good.

Think of building a house. Stage one puts the basement in, the foundation. Stage two starts the framing. It's still roughing, but now we work on how everything is supposed to be shaped.

For roughing I use a number 9 gouge at 20 mm, about 3/4 inch, on everything. A bigger one is even better. A 25 or a 30 mm number 9 just saves so much time. For the grapes, the main tools are a number 7 at 14 mm, a little bigger than half an inch, and my number 5 by Ashley Iles at about half an inch, 12 or 13 mm. Those two will give you the result. Without a number 5 you can do the whole thing with a number 7. And with neither one, don't carve your grapes. That means it's time to buy. I talk about tools in a whole course of its own.

This is how the timing of the cleaning worked out on this panel.

Why leave a piece of paper on the highest grape?

The paper is my indicator. When the first grape had its full sphere, a bit of the paper pattern was still on top, and I left it there. It tells me I'm still using the full block and should not go deeper there. That grape is my high spot.

Every other grape goes slightly lower. We're working in full 3D, and we want to use the full block. Put them all on the same level and it won't look like full 3D. It has to flow.

Later in the lesson I point at them in turn, from my high spot down through three lower grapes, each one lower than the last. I also make sure the grapes are not the same size, just to give some variation. I placed the high spot by the golden ratio, on a diagonal, both ways, and if that means nothing to you yet, please watch my design course.

How much wood should come off a grape?

Another mistake I see when people start working on the overall shape is taking so much material that it isn't a grape anymore. It becomes some kind of berry.

No good.

The same goes for an undercut. One grape here lays right on top of a leaf, so I undercut it, still slicing, never pushing straight down. Don't go too crazy with it. Excavate too much and the grape looks like it's floating in the air. You still can do it, but I advise you not to. Lesson 3 has one more warning from me. Dig too deep and you damage the neighboring grape, and then you have to spend a lot more time cleaning up. So stop before you hit too hard.

What does the final clean-up look like?

On that modern acanthus class piece I showed the end of the job. Say a spot has gone blackish. I take a flatter tool, ride on top of those facets, take them out and clean all that dirt. If the tool fights you, change the direction. Spend your time cleaning.

Cleaning can take a lot longer than carving. It's an operation that doesn't create any form. I've done it, to perfection. There was a stage in my life when I did that, and it looked really beautiful, but then it just looked like plastic, not like it was carved.

For me, when I see a brush mark, it looks better. The facets are like brush marks, and they make a piece look like a diamond. For this grape panel, the last word is the final assessment, and there is no end to how far you can take it.

Where should you start if grapes are new to you?

Take a block of wood, or whatever leftover piece you have, and try to do a few grapes before you carve the real piece. It looks easy, but for some people it's not that easy. This project is not necessarily for the beginner. If you want to challenge yourself, why not?

This panel started at a class I taught at the Marc Adams School. We didn't finish it. We worked on pretty much just one leaf and started on the grapes. Multiple people asked me to show the same project online, so I picked up this same piece instead of a new block. I took it on an airplane after the class, and the people checking stuff were not too careful. A little piece broke. But it's okay.

I'm pretty sure there are different approaches to carving grapes, but mine works for me every time. See how quickly you can get those grapes in. In the next lessons I do more roughing on this same panel.

Every lesson of this course is open with Tuition, and that scrap of paper is still sitting on the top grape for now.

Shall we carve?