Wood Fox

For this week’s learning project post I decided to carve a fox. Similar to last week’s project, I learned from a youtube video. I felt that this carve was easier than last weeks and I have a couple hunches as to why that is. First, I found that I made less mistakes on the fox in cutting the wood the wrong way. On the gnome I cut with the grain and ended up chipping the wood on occasion. This week I learned from that mistake and did that only once, but in a spot where it did not affect the overall curve. Second, the video was easier to follow than the previous one. The channel ‘carving is fun’ is directed to help beginners, so it makes a great resource for me. The video shows all cuts that happen plus a picture beside to show what you are working towards. I did not think it would make that much of a difference, but in comparison to last weeks video it definitely does.

Another benefit of this video is that I throws in tips and tricks throughout the video. The one that really helped was using the blade as a way to mark straight lines and keep things in proportion. Last week I used a ruler and pencil to measure on all sides to keep it even, but this way it is much more efficient and accurate. The only thing I did not like about this video is the camera angle and the big gloves made it difficult to see some of the cuts. I am not sure how you might go about fixing this issue when working with a project this small, but that is what I noticed.

This fox was very satisfying to make. As I went through each step I could see exactly where it was going which made each step engaging for me and entertaining. You can see the final product on the right of this paragraph. I am quite pleased with how this one turned out. I left the tail really bushy because I like how it looked. It’s all about personal vision! The hardest part was carving out the legs, specifically the space in between. You cannot tell in the pictures, but that section was pretty rough when I was finished. I found it difficult to make the curved cut in between because the angle was awkward with the knife, especially the straight blade. I got it well enough that it looked sound with the rest of the fox. All in all this was really enjoyable for me and I am excited to work on the next one.

 

 

As I mentioned last week, I planned to take videos and post them here to immerse you all in my carving experience, but I had some major issues with the formatting since the size of the files were so large for some reason. I took short clips of the wood as I went through each step to show you the progression of my project. The videos are awesome, but I was not able to compile them just yet. Luckily, I noticed that the next project we will include some kind of app to document our learning. Perfect timing! For next week I will have a video of my next project as well as the compilation of this fox. See you then!