Project #39 - Ddalo Cow

It has been a while. Took some time off from whittling, just had a lot of other things demanding my time…done some travels with the trailer, preparing for the arrive of our beautiful now 1 week old granddaughter Lydia and embarking on another life long goal of learning to be a Blacksmith.

But the itch to carve finally drove me to pick up a knife and wood again, but what to carve?? Woodcarving Illustrated is often a good source of inspiration but nothing in the recent issues really called to me at this time…

Then I found it! Ran across a post referencing a Korean Carver that I have enjoyed before Ddalo Carver and found this little bovine while perusing his YouTube channel. As we had just hosted some 4-H cows in our front yard, this subject seemed the perfect choice!

Project #38 - Cardinal II

I decided to do another Cardinal. As with the last one, this is Scandinavian Flat-plane style with a more folk-art style paint job. It is made from Basswood and is near life-sized. The base is a piece from a pine tree I recently took down in the yard.

Project# 37 - Cardinal

Inspired by an article by James Miller in the Winter 2022 issue of Woodcarvers Illustrated and in need of a break from Santas and Penguins, I made this little flat-plane style Cardinal. The bird is of basswood and is about 2/3 life size, the base is a piece cut from a broken branch of a crab-apple tree from the back yard.

I opted to paint in the more widely recognizable colors of the male Cardinal. It was a fun project and look forward to trying a few more in the future.

This little guy was a Christmas gift for one of my Sisters.

Chain of Lights

December brings Sutton’s annual Christmas celebration the “Chain of Lights”. Last year as part of this event I did a whittling demo at Polly’s and sold off some excess carvings. I was well received so we decided to do it again this year.

This year’s demo (and sale) items were Santa Ornaments and Penguins (Project#s 34 & 36) as well the Yorkie Dog (Project# 11) and a Gnome that I realized I never talked about here.

As always the event was a lot of fun, the weather was decent (with the less pleasant parts holding off until later in the day). Got to talk to a lot of people of all ages and encourage some budding whittlers!!