tributesinwood

Cottonwood Cabin

And now for a bit of a departure from caricature carvings and a return to bark carving.  I’ve completed two other bark carvings that you can check out in previous posts…the Cottonwood Mill and Castle Cottonwood.

This one is already taking on the characteristics of a cabin in the woods.  In this case, the cabin is actually going to be on the woods in that it’ll be on the top of an old rotting tree surrounded by rock cliffs.  Hey…you take a look at the bark and try to imagine what’s inside it’s basic shape…and that’s what was there.

I should mention, that the “back” of the bark, or the piece against the tree, is first planed down a bit to get a flat rather than a concave surface so that when it’s finished as a wall hanging the carving sits flat against the wall.

Peggy looked over my shoulder as I started this one yesterday and came up with a pretty good description on how I approach bark carvings when she said “It’s like doodling.”  And I guess it is…you start with a basic idea and just start carving one piece and let that lead you to what the next piece is going to look like.  No prior sketch or hard plan, just an idea that evolves as you carve and as you clumsily break pieces off ( Cottonwood bark is a bit fragile ).

So, given that, I started with just roughing in the roof line and a few doors and windows.  Today I’ve done a bit more on the cedar roof shingles and detailed in one of the dormer windows.  Kind of mindless, relaxing carving and a break from pulling weeds.