tributesinwood

Wood Carvings by Mark Sheridan

Archive for the month “March, 2018”

More Dogs and Accessories

I’ve added in a few items since my last blog entry.  The first is an old-style hot water radiator.  I thought that might look good perched under the window and add to the 1930’s style that I’m looking to create.  The second item involves more dogs…

I thought that it would be nice to have several dogs with their heads tilted up and to the side watching the antics of the window-washer.  We had a little West Highland Terrier, or Westie, in the past ( named Angus MacGregor ) and I thought that he’d make a nice addition to the scene.

They’re a pretty boxy little dog, so it was fairly straight forward in cutting a shape out on the bandsaw and then roughing it in with a Typhoon bit on a Foredom handpiece.   I used the same method from the last dog by cutting along the neckline and then making and gluing in place a wedge of basswood that tilted the head up and to the side.

Most of the detailing was done with the same small gouge that I used to make the coat of the previous dog, however, I made a few passes with a small v-tool and later with a burning tool as well to create some very fine lines that would make the coat look a bit more wirey…similar to a Westie’s coat.  Westies are white unless you bathe them in tomato juice to remove the scent of a skunk ( a memorable episode with Angus ).

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You know, this little dog ended up looking so nice that I thought the last dog looked poor in comparison.  It seemed to me that the head was just too small for a caricature…so, off it came and I glued on another block of wood and started again.  And, then, just to add to the scene, I created a very small chihuahua.  I think that rounds things out for now.

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Adding a Watchful Dog

I can’t seem to finish many carvings without adding a dog and this one isn’t going to be different.

This little dog will be watching the window washer with just about the same tilt to his head as that of the window washer.  I may even add in another dog along the way.

I started with a fairly straight forward clay model of the dog and then just traced the outline of the front and side view of the model on to a piece of paper.  Once I cut the pattern out on the bandsaw, I also cut the head of the dog off and with a wedge of basswood I glued everything back together again with what I thought looked like a nice tilt and sideways glance of the head.

I used Typhoon bits and a Foredom tool to do the initially roughing and followed that up with knives and a small gouge to make the fur along the body.

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