How to Carve Animals in Wood

If you decide you would like to learn how to carve animals in wood as a hobby, you will quickly learn that it can be a very relaxing, creative outlet. You really don't need a lot to get started--just a nice piece of wood, a couple of carving tools and your imagination. If you become good enough, you may even consider selling your work or entering wood carving competitions.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Choose a soft wood, especially if you are just learning how to carve animals in wood. It's easier to carve and more forgiving if you make mistakes. Basswood is ideal for beginners, and butternut is also a good first choice.

2. Start by tracing your design on the surface of the wood. You can use carbon paper for this process, which is one of the most common ways carvers do it. This paper works on most wood, but if the wood is dark, you may want to use dress maker's carbon paper, which is usually white. Put the tracing paper on the wood and the design you be tracing on top of that, secure the paper to the wood with tape and trace the exact design onto the wood.

3. Use a curved chisel to begin slowly removing wood, a little at a time, according to the pattern. You can get patterns from wood carving books such as "Carving Animals in Wood" by E. J. Tangerman.

4. Continue cutting away more pieces to carve the animal in the wood. Refine the shape of your animal pattern using smaller curved chisel tools for detail, as needed.

5. Smooth and shape your image. You may use very tiny wood chisels, picks, files and sanding tools to get the results you desire. Use gradually finer sandpaper with gentle strokes to keep from the scarring the wood and to get your project as smooth as possible.

6. Finish carving your wood project. Now you can decide whether to leave it natural, seal it with a varnish or paint it. The finish you decide to use should enhance your carving.

Tips & Warnings

• Learn to carve animals in wood with as few tools as possible. You may be a carver who doesn't require many tools, so buy only a couple to get started and then buy more as you need them. There are several basic tools that are standard, however, such as the bench knife, straight gouge, "U" gouge, "V" gouge or "V" point chisel and straight chisel.
• Your carving tools will eventually require sharpening, which is something a carver should learn to do for themselves and isn't very difficult to do.
• Wear goggles and a mask to protect yourself when carving wood.

[dolphinq]

on 11/6/2009 (cont.) . . . trace over the outline of the sketch so that the "carbon" on the back marks the wood--that works for the first side, but on subsequent sides, maybe cut around the sketch and hold it just over the wood and mark it by eye, while looking straight down at it.

[dolphinq]

on 11/6/2009 I love carving stuff!
Once I saw a whittler using thick leather gloves, and became quite envious. I'd never used gloves before--and I have a couple of scars to prove it. . .
When I carve, I make side, front, and top view drawings (making sure their dimensions match each other--for example, the fat belly of the top view of your hippo should be the same width as the fat belly in the front view, the length from nose to tail should be the same on the top view as on the side view, and so forth).
A jigsaw can be used to cut *straight* down through the silhouette of each view (or you can do this by hand--esp. where it's too thick for the saw.) You'll find after cutting out the silhouette for all three views that the hardest part of shaping is done.
If you don't have carbon paper, try blacking the back of your sketch with a pencil, then put it on the wood and trace over the...

[yggdrasill]

on 10/10/2009 Sounds like fun.

[an-triukas]

on 8/18/2009 http://www.kugli.com/Classified_Ads/adid/212051/adtitle/Original_woood_sculptures/

[vernk]

on 8/12/2009 always wanted to do woodwork...thanks for the info!