In keeping with the Year of the Wooden Horse, a new shield woodcut of a medieval horse.
Approximately 32″ tall and 20″ wide, the Stallion Woodcut is fashioned from reclaimed spruce and hand chiseled. The edges are slightly rounded to give the design a barrel shape. The finish is water-based Prairie Bench Storybook with additional light sanding inside the cut border. A polished black onyx stone adds a nice shine for the eye.
#271-BL-02-14
32″x20″ with 5% curve
reclaimed Spruce
r, beware the dragon road sign. Someone took the time to carve a warning, so consider a different route.
This crest style sign is handmade with a rough wood cut of a dragon. It’s smaller than our regular shields with a doweled wood bracket that slides over a hanger on a sign post. The entire piece is made with reclaimed spruce and Prairie Bench Storybook finish.
259-BL-2-14Approx. size: 15″x28″
Spruce with hardwood dowel
Take a look at the progress of a hand carved wooden crest for the Family O’Leary. It’s part of a promo we’re doing at a new store in town.
Also… we put together an ‘ancient’ spruce wooden crest. First a sketch with ye ol carpenter’s pencil. Then rough out the shapes with a sharp chisel, then get fancy with a grinding wheel and some carving knives. We used spruce planks and didn’t plane them for a rough, hewn look. Next, we’ll cut the final shape, burn the edges, throw in some sword gouges and four hundred years of weather. Crests are fun to do because we learn something about the family history. This includes a sword and gantlet, crown, helmet, three masted ship, the crest, plumage, and a red lion. Check back to see the final piece when we’ve aged it and added a few battles.
In the age old tradition of carving family crests on thick wooden shields, we did our own. It’s a representation of a lion on a field of leaves.
Our carver created a fine line etching and finished the work with a custom frame holder. The crest is made out of a few select pieces of fine grain spruce and the holder is fir. Spruce is a softer wood but quite strong and pleasant to carve and whittle. A light stain of mixed antiquing oils was used to penetrate the etching and darken the lines. The piece is soaked in linseed oil and cured to a hard finish. (If you are working with oils, remember to place the rags in a sealed metal container or they might spontaneously ignite. Or hang them outside to dry.)
A retired furniture manufacturer from the UK saw this piece and pronounced it definitely guild quality. We don’t know about all that, but humbled considering we are just whittling out back.
Approximate size: 31″ x 21″ x 1.5″ thick with a 5% curve.
Continuing with the Elk and Wolf Dining Project, the frames for the two thrones are complete. Each uses hazelnut posts with balsam fir supports. The backboard and seat are Sitka Spruce. The dowels are hazelnut and hemlock. No screws or nails are used, just glue and pressure. The posts were measured to fit then hand chiseled to fit the interlocking fir supports. No stain was used, just clear finish and some charcoal was sanded into the joints.
The hazelnut posts are grown onsite and have a muscular, sinew look with a slight purple hue. The spruce backboard is from an old log claimed from the Fraser river by a local tug operator. The arms have carved paws and there a some roughed meadow leaves and branches on the edges and seat. When sitting, the wolf appears to be looking over your shoulder, a bit scary and intimidating for your subjects. That’s the look we wanted!
The seat had a natural band that seems to create a scene with a knot moon in the background. Wood contains it’s own art, but it was fun to add our carving of a wolf. So much fun, we made a spruce shield to indicate when the Wolf King or Queen was in town. If the shield is hanging on the throne, the wolf is around.
Check back to see the Elk throne. It’s almost done.
