tributesinwood

Wood Carvings by Mark Sheridan

Archive for the tag “female caricature”

22 Mar 2020
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Lots of Projects

Thank goodness that I have lots of projects to keep me occupied. Like most communities around the world, those of us who can stay indoors are doing just that. We’ve been out to walk Rosie and pick up a few groceries but other than that, we’ve been trying to help out the situation by staying pretty much to ourselves. I hope that all is well at your homes.

I’ve done a bit of lathe turning since my last post on tributesinwood.com Some friends that I’ve been carving with have been giving me little scraps of some nice exotic woods that are just big enough to turn into Christmas tree ornaments. I’ve been enjoying that. The pickle ornament isn’t exactly exotic wood…but, certainly out of the ordinary!

I’ve also been making some progress on my little romantic scene. A street lamp and an accordion has been added to the scene along with a set of oversized shoes for the romantic fella.

My intent all along was to try to make the gal very delicate and her fella kinda rough around the edges. So, I spent a lot of time getting her hands and feet carved quite dainty and then I sanded and smoothed away all of the knife marks. This is the first time that I’ve intentionally sanded away the gouge and knife marks on one of my caricatures. I’m hoping that the contrast between her smooth features and the rougher features of the fella come across well in the final carving.

Here’s how she’s looking all painted up. The painting was pretty straight forward although I added just a bit of silver to her blouse to make it sparkle a bit and I used alternating washes of flesh colour and yellow ochre on her legs to make it look like she’s wearing nylons.

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Posted in Be My Valentine and tagged , , ,
14 Feb 2020
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A Valentine

I’ve been busy with a million things but did get some time to start a caricature of a boyfriend for our little gal. She’s been patiently waiting and it seems that Valentine’s Day might be the right occasion for a formal introduction.

This little fellow will be a bit geeky when finished, so I started with a facial expression that was a bit distant and a wide-open mouth singing a love song at the top of his lungs. I stuck that head in what became a clay figure that would accommodate an old fashioned accordion. I thought an accordion would be the least likely instrument that even a love-struck boy would bring with him on a date…

There’s not a lot of detail in the clay figure, just enough to give me a sense of the right posture and a bit of an image to trace onto paper and bring to the bandsaw. After some bandsaw work and some roughing-in with a Foredom and knife, I set the two figures together to get a sense of positioning.

I’ll add shoes later, but needed this rough image to determine the orientation of the hands and the space that I needed to fit the accordion. After adding a bit of detail…including a bow-tie, of course…here’s how it’s coming along.

Posted in Be My Valentine and tagged , , , ,
14 Jan 2020

A Female Caricature

I finally got around to trying to carve a female caricature. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to try but have never got around to it until now.

I’ve always thought that a male caricature carving would be easier than trying to do a female caricature. A man’s face just seems to me to lend itself more to a caricature…you can really exaggerate the size of the nose and ears, you can give him really baggy eyes and lots of wrinkles and the face will still look great when it’s finished.

Now, if you do similarly exaggerated features for a woman’ face, well, you really start worrying about whether or not you’ll even be able to tell that it’s a woman.

So, off I went with the challenge to carve a pretty caricature…big eyes, nice bright smile and tiny nose.

I liked her so much that I thought that she needed a dainty little stance to go with the pretty face. Sitting with one knee over the other and her hands neatly placed together, she started to take shape.

As I went, I started to sand things smooth and remove the knife marks. I thought that this might make her look even more dainty. I’m not sure what the setting will be just yet but I’m thinking about something that pairs her up with a beau who she’s fond of but who is not quite as attractive as her…

Posted in Pretty Gal and tagged , , | Leave a comment

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