tributesinwood

Wood Carvings by Mark Sheridan

Archive for the month “January, 2013”

29 Jan 2013

Hamilton Carving Show

This past weekend, my daughter and I attended the Canadian Carving Championship in Hamilton, Ontario.  This show was a combination wood show and carving competition.  I believe that this has been an annual event for a number of years, and, of course, was the first time that I had attended.  I’ve been looking forward to this show for some time.

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Held in the Hamilton Aircraft Museum, this was a great chance for Emily and I to take in some historic aircraft.  I had been to the Hamilton airport a number of times as a kid to take in the military airshows, but had never been back to see the indoor museum of airworthy WWII era aircraft…most notably, the Lancaster, Spitfire, AT-6’s and Chipmunks.

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It was obviously also a great chance to take in some woodworking demos and view some nice carvings.  It was a high quality show with a lot of carving entries and I suspect that it was well attended for the full weekend.

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The best part of the weekend was spending time with Emily.  We had a great time.  Emily was lucky enough to take away a door prize for some free lessons in creating a stained glass project. Watch for that project on her craft blog…you can link to ms premise-conclusion on this page.

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The second best part of the weekend was having Zeke awarded 1st Place in Intermediates Caricatures and 2nd Place in Class. Check out those ribbons!  I was really proud of this as there were some beautiful carvings that Zeke competed alongside.

Chico and Poncho also won 2nd Place in Intermediates Caricatures.

What a weekend.  It’s going to be hard to beat…Emily, carving and airplanes!

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20 Jan 2013

The Corporal Gets Some Colour

Cpl Sowerby got a bit of paint this weekend.  I didn’t want him to look too battle worn but not parade perfect, either.  As a result, he has a bit of colourful dirt on his slightly worn hat.

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He’s also been out in the sun a bit too long and picked up a bit of a sunburn on his nose and the tops of his ears where his hat wasn’t giving him any protection.  Then again, I don’t imagine that sun damage was these soldiers’ biggest concern.

A bit of a five-o’clock shadow rounds out his not-so-parade-ready look.

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I think the hat badge turned out pretty well.  That’s a base coat of gold with a bit of copper colour for highlighting.  I put a coat of urethane on the front of the hat to give it a more of a leather polished look.  The back of the hat was felt, so it won’t get the shiny treatment.

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13 Jan 2013

Cpl. Sowerby Progress

I did a bit more detailing yesterday on Sowerby’s head and hat.  I think it’s looking pretty good with the plume/rosette and rope tassel.  Just a bit more tweaking and it’ll be ready for some paint.

Those are brass coloured nails on the sides to look like button heads.  I’m going to look for some brass or gold coloured film of some sort to put over the badge and still allow the badge carving to show through.

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12 Jan 2013
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Family Crest

While I’m working away at my 1812 Soldier ( Cpl. Sowerby ), I thought you might be interested in a carving that I did of our family crest.  Not quite along the lines of my caricatures blog…but a “tribute in wood” just the same.

The Sheridan family is originally from County Cavan in Ireland, where two brothers left for Canada around 1860.  The crest is of a lion with three shamrocks surrounding it.

The overall size of the crest is about 17″ high and 11″ wide.  The relief portion is made from mahogany and the background plaque is covered in a velvet.

I actually carved this relief carving almost 26 years ago and presented it to my Dad on Father’s Day as a surprise.  I had a small photo at the time to go from…one that my Dad had taken of a framed photo that one of his brothers had.  I was pretty excited about giving it to my Dad and I remember him being just delighted in receiving it.

The crest is now hanging in my house.  It’s a nice memory to have of that day and many other great days I had with my Dad.

He’d have got a real kick out of my latest carvings and this web site.

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05 Jan 2013
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Cpl. Duncan Sowerby

We took a trip to visit family over the last few days and had a great visit with everyone.  During the car ride we came up with a name for the 1812 Infantryman caricature…Corporal Duncan Sowerby.

What do you think?…Sound right for the era?

Here’s a quick snapshot of the first pass at his hat.  Eventually, a feather plume, some knotted cord and a brass badge will decorate the front of the hat.

It’s interesting that the hat was termed a Shako.  Some quick surfing came up with the origin of the word being from Hungary and meaning a peaked cap.

In general, it’s interesting that the uniforms of the time were so colourful and ornate.  Similarly, the hats would be tall and equally ornate.  Neither reflected the sense of camouflage that we know of today.

For those interested in the construction, again, you’ll see that I made the hat in two parts.  The peak has the grain running horizontally in the photo so that it has greater strength and won’t break as easily as it would have had I run the grain vertically through the entire hat.

After roughing-in the hat and cutting off a bit of the top of the head level, it was just then a matter of dishing out the bottom of the brim to fit the head.  The dishing out gives the impression that the hat is pulled right over the head.

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01 Jan 2013

Happy New Year 2013!

Happy New Year!  It’s going to take a while to get used to writing 2013…I was just getting used to 2012.

Here are a couple of photos of my latest carving of the British Infantry Soldier.  I haven’t come up with a good name for him yet, so, if you have some ideas, let’s hear them.  The Niagara Carving Show is in April and I think that will be his first showing…fitting, given the Battle of Lundy’s Lane fought there.

Still a lot to carve, but you can see how he’ll be holding his musket at the ready across his chest.  I’ll be adding the hands separately once I put the musket together.  I find that this method of adding the hands works well when you are trying to carve the hands such that they hold something…in this case, the musket.  Adding them with separate pieces of wood also gives you the chance to get the grain of the wood going in the best direction for strength of the carving.  A hand or a small finger would break away with the slightest impact if the grain wasn’t going in the right direction.

ImageHere’s a shot of the back-pack, ammunition pouch and canteen.  I’m pretty sure that the two stripes indicate a rank of Corporal.  He’ll also have a bed roll strapped up on the top of the back-pack and a hat when he’s finished.

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