Starting the Beaver at Marwell

After a short break away and tackling a rather urgent commission I resumed work on the Pole today. I joined the Solent Guild which was exhibiting and demonstrating at Marwell Park, and the Bear certainly attracted a lot of interest.


The Beaver was measured out and aligned so that initial roughing cuts could be made in the right place. The tip of the nose is one of the high spots so I relieved that and then found the contours of the eyebrows.
The next high point is the bottom of the two front teeth so it was quite easy to shape them down into the mouth, and this enabled the contours of the mouth to be set.
The two rounds each side of the nose are not eyes! But they are rather stylized whiskers.



Approx 3.5 hours

The Bear is Done!

Over the last couple of days, I have concentrated on finishing the main carving of the bear, and I'm quite happy that it looks pretty well in keeping with the various 'originals' that I have seen. This view shows the contours taken round the sides. They are not taken all the way round the back because the intention is to mount the finished pole against a wall or other support.

As can be see from both these photos, the surfaces tend to get fairly dirty looking. This is mostly because the wood tends to stain the hands while working, rather like oak does. This can easily get transferred back to the surfaces. Luckily these can be cleaned with Methylated Spirit.

Some of the surfaces may need a bit more refining and smoothing, but this will be better done after all the other subjects are brought to the same level.

The next job will be to plan and rough out the shape of the Beaver. But other priorities will mean little progress here for a week or so.

Approx 7 hours (so about 25 hours total on the Bear)

The Bear's Left side

Yesterday and today, (so far) I have been working on refining the front claws holding the fish and extending the left paw round the side. This meant turning the pole onto its side and the work quickly ran into the back left leg and paw. So here is the area roughed out.
It became obvious that the rest of the left side of the bear should be shaped so as to solve some of the lines and contours coming round fom the front.

I did not have an exact prototype for the side of the bear, but remembered seeing several in Canada which, similar to the Beaver, showed the animal sitting on its haunches. The head is normally of a much larger scale than the body. I took the shaping up to the crown, but not above it as I haven't yet decided what the boundary between the Bear and Beaver will look like.

The surfaces were smoothed as much as possible. In some areas this was frustratingly difficult due to the close interlocking of the grain.When I got it to this stage, I decided it was time to start on the other side in case this threw up any inconsistencies which needed adjustments on the first side.

7.25 Hours

Bear's Teeth !

My time on the project today was spent defining and 'extracting' the Bear's teeth. They shouldn't bee too regular, I decided, and the exposed tongue is of equal importance in the mouth.

The Bear is also usually shown holding a fish. And although this wasn't in our prototype, I decided it would be fun to include one. So here you can see the fish outlined and the start of the rather indicative paws holding it.

Approx 3 hours
BTW I use a stopwatch to get some idea of how long I spend on any project like this. Of course sometimes I orget to start it, or forget to turn it off when I get an interruption, but generally the timings are good enough.

Southwick Show

Today I joined with my fellow Guild members to exhibit and demonstrate carving at the Southwick Village Show. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm with just a gentle breeze to keep things reasonably cool.

I took the Totem pole and here you see it set up ready to start.



Here you can see some of my colleagues and our exhibition.



As always at these events we spend a lot of time talking to the visitors, so only a limited amount of carving actually gets done. However I did manage to rough out the mouth, exposing the tongue, and starting to define the level of the teeth.



Approx 1.5 hours

The Bear's Eyes.

Today I have shaped the Bear's nose and eyes. Had some trouble with interlocked grain through and under the left eye, but providing I approach this from the correct angles the gain can be controlled.Although the eyes have been shaped, rounded and smoothed, I have not given them 'sight'. I adhere to the idea believed by many other carvers, that giving sight to a figurative carving should be the last thing you do, (if it is done at all !)


3.5 hours

Shaping and Starting the Bear

The first task with the Idigbo length was to remove the front corners. As the piece is rectangular rather than square in cross-section I decided to leave the back flat with just a small amount of rounding. I also decided that I could use the whole width near the front to accommodate the Beaver's stick, so marked off that area so as not to remove it.

I cross cut the corners at the marked limits of the Beaver's stick, and then set the band saw a 45 degrees and removed the corners.

I then decided to start carving the Bear, as this is at the bottom of the pole.



This shows the area left for the 'stick', the top corners removed and the beginning of the carving of the Bear's crown.

2 hours