Well we've done it again. It's The Country Carvers second Friendship Cane, this time with a Halloween theme. It's another true piece of American Folk Art. This one will be raffled on the same day as our first cane. Enjoy!
Well it's been over a year since my last post....busy busy...
Ah, yes the watermellon. Delicious to eat. Even more delicious to carve! Here are several views of two of my Hawaiian Tikis. I'm working on a vegetable carving book. Pumpkins, Watermellons, Squash, Yams etc... Hope you like them.
Okay everyone, here are the front and back covers for my new book due in June. This book will be printed in the 5.5" x 8.5" format for easy storage in your carving tool boxes and back pockets. Get yourself a Flexcut travel kit and a handful of golf balls and go camping!
Thought I would upload a photo from my upcoming 3rd book "The Little Book of Carving Golf Ball Buddies" coming out in about a month (if all goes as planned). There just isn't enough information out there on the subject so I thought I would throw my two cents in and write my own book. Golf balls are a blast to carve. Since I carved about a hundred of these by now, I have a lot of pictures for the gallery portion of the book. I'm going to step up to the plate on this one and get an ISBN number and bar code to keep the bookstores happy. I'm also hoping to finish my 4th book this summer.
The strip in the lid is for traveling, shows etc... I use mostly the interchangeable Flexcut tools in my kit. As I carve I can toss them on the strip and even close the lid quickly if needed and not drop them all over the place. As far as marking them, I engraved all the Flexcut tools with the catalog number to identify them. I am a Flexcut dealer and have most all the profiles in the shop. This way a customer can try the tool before they buy and I can instantly identify the number so that they get the right tool off the rack. "Letterset" makes sheets of dry transfer letters and numbers that could be put on the handles. They transfer from the sheet by rubbing with a small stick. You can then cover with a little clear spray etc... They could then be removed later if the tools were going to be sold. I used this technique several years ago before I started using the engraver.
Well here is my second book, "Carving a HatMan". I used a weeping willow branch for this one, but any tree with branches (LOL) could be used to create the hat peak. The inspiration for this carving was from a ceramic Santa Clause that my wife puts out every year on the fireplace mantle. His beard just sort of hung over the edge of the shelf. I found that Weeping Willow carves just as easy as Basswood and in my area is more plentiful than any other species. In this book I take the student from harvesting the HatMan blanks through a finished shelf hanger with big bushy mustash. The gallery is loaded with pleanty of examples and should be a great resource for anyone that loves to carve. 
Okay here is look at my first book. It's been a couple of years since I've written "Carving a Closet Buddy", but it's getting a little more popular all the time. I first got the idea of writing this book when my wife purchased some aromatic red cedar blocks to put in her wool sweater box. I thought why not write a book on how to carve this type of wood. I also wanted to keep all the steps simple but detailed enough so that a beginner could easily finish the project. I tried to give each character a slightly angry look so that if the cedar smell didn't chase away the moths, the facial expression would. LOL Being sort of a self starter, I took all the photos myself with a time delayed digital camera. I did all the publishing using MS Word, and contracted a local print shop do all the printing. I felt this would be the best way to control the stock inventory and would keep the book from prematurely going out of print. (Plus I saved a bundle on a third party publisher costs and control all the rights). Check out further posts for my other books.
