40 Years at the Bench
Ian Norbury
I was brought up in a house in the country with no electricity. In the evenings my father sat drawing pencil portraits of his family. Looking back, they seem good, but they may not have been. However, drawing was more normal than writing to me and I pursued it much as kids today play computer games. When I was fifteen, I painted a portrait at school, of a fellow pupil, whose father paid £50 for it - a large sum in 1964. Needless to say, the school kept the £50 but my course was set to be an artist.
I left school that year, got a job and began selling paintings on the side. In 1973 I went to train as a teacher of art. At the college they had carving chisels. I had tried my hand in 1971 using Xacto knives and a block of builder’s wood. I made a devil’s head. Finding all the carving tools in the college plus a supply of wood inspired me to learn more. The technician, John Havard (an ex-cabinetmaker) showed me how to sharpen the tools on a sanding machine. Soon I received a small commission to replace a piece of carving on an old chair, which led me to working for the antiques trade. Copying old carvings is a good way to learn and antique dealers are very particular when they want to pass off a fake!
Using a Victorian book on woodcarving I spent countless evenings practising gouge cuts and chip carved decorations. After some years in antiques, I decided to carve figures, animals and birds. Eventually I ended up where I am now.
My point in writing this, after 40 years experience in woodcarving, is to pick out what really matters, what is really necessary to achieve a good result and what would be great if you had it, but can do without. For example, it would be nice to have a Ferrari, but you can get there on a bike, if you have the will.
For a few years I carved a wide variety of subjects – horses, because I had been a painter of horses, animals, birds and some figures. After a while I realised that my birds would never fly and most of the animals I carved I had never even seen. I also copied a lot of stuff from books such as ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Gradually I came to the conclusion that I must do something more original. One of the world’s most popular and original artists is Salvador Dali. Why? Few people could claim to understand his paintings – but in my opinion it is a combination of technical perfection with an enigma that fascinates. I have tried, in my own humble way, to achieve a level of technical perfection with an enigma or a story. When I carve a naked woman holding a piece of cloth it can be ‘Salome’ – a bizarre biblical story – or it can be ‘The Stripper’ – a modern concept, or it might be ‘After the Bath’ - a young girl about to dry herself. Of course, it could simply be ‘Nude holding a piece of cloth’.
So that is the path I took. I had an exhibition every year, soon changed to two years because of the numbers of carvings needed and the lead time for publicity. An exhibition needs a minimum of approximately 20 pieces as you cannot drag people half way across England to see half a dozen carvings! Also, exhibitions organised properly (and my wife Betty does them properly) cost a lot of money. There has to be enough work to cover the costs and two years work.
Fortunately for me, this was happening during a period of considerable affluence in Britain and sales were excellent. Also the property we owned had a gallery, so my work could be displayed all the year round. I had a bank manager, Malcolm Winlow, who backed me to the hilt – you need a lot of backing to work for two years and launch an exhibition.
Well that is the background – Now to the technicalities.
Wood
Wood is the basic material I must all live with. It is far more available now than thirty or forty years ago, when I found my first limewood being made into pallets. I have carved a great many types of timber scavenged from different sources – table legs, a truck bed, firewood etc. Almost any wood can be carved but size is usually a sticking point. Most timbers are available up to four or maybe five inches thick. Old beams and such like can be found in very large size, but are usually full of faults. Timber merchants will rarely cut and dry timber over six inches thick because of excessive wastage.
Long ago I decided that I had to source my own wood. I came to an agreement with Jack Clark, my timber merchant that I would pay for a lime tree and he would cut it to nine or ten inch boards and store it. After a few years I would start to use it. This has worked well for me and I would recommend it to any carver who wants to work on anything but a very small scale. You’d be surprised how quickly the years will pass – alarmingly so as you get older! I now limit myself to limewood and walnut – the walnut from veneer cores. I do not like grainy woods because the figuring intrudes on the forms. Walnut, although grainy, tends to be kind of laid back and doesn’t upset the shapes. Of course in other countries there will be other timbers available. Also, some carvers just laminate which I do not do.
Even with large section timber I will stick bits on - there is hardly a carved crucifix in the world that does not have the arms stuck on separately – it is traditional. If you are thinking of using green wood, my advice is - don’t! I have done it successfully, as have others, but it is a very unreliable practice with a very high rate of failure.
Alternatively you could just stick to relief carving – no problem then!
Tools
For many of us tools become an end in themselves. I plead guilty to the addiction, but I have kicked it! When I was restoring antiques, I was the proud possessor of over a hundred and twenty wooden moulding planes of which five were useful.
Now I have about sixty carving gouges, having recently sold another sixty or seventy, and I reckon I could sell another forty and not miss them. Nearly all carvings can be carried out with a dozen gouges, a knife and a few burrs. I have scores of burrs, many blunt and useless, but I do not like to throw them away. Do I hear any other guilty pleas?
I have used many makes of gouges and would unequivocally recommend the Swiss Pfeil brand. The company has never done anything for me, which several other companies certainly have, but I just think they’re the best. I see professional carvers all over the world using them, even in Bali.
People will carve with just about anything from a piece of glass to a chainsaw but the average carver just wants something that holds an edge. The edge has to be sharpened and after trying umpteen different methods from white Arkansas stones to emery paper, I’ve plumped for a powered water stone followed by a hard felt wheel on a grinder with a green polishing paste on it. It may not produce the finest edge, but it is so quick that you always have a reasonably good edge. I would also recommend an anti slash glove when using a knife and I am extremely grateful to the guy in America who gave me one. Cutting a slice of my finger was one of the worst experiences of my life. I use the glove religiously.
I’ve met so many carvers who hate sanding. This is I believe because they use cheap rubbishy sandpaper and they don’t really know how to do it properly. I will always remember a lady on a course who said she hated sanding, and produced a box of emery nail files – no wonder she hated it!! Sanding is a whole art in itself – just as important as the carving. Some people, of course, prefer a tooled finish, but that is another story.
Measuring instruments are my favourites and I use them constantly, yet on courses in the States I have had an entire class of ten without a pair of dividers between them. They must have better eyesight than mine!
In Bali they hold the carving between their feet – I’ve watched them do it. An excellent system if you are double jointed and have prehensile toes. Lesser mortals must use mechanical devices that are very expensive. Anyone watching my blog will have seen me using three different ones this year, plus the bench vice and the bench – something like £1,500 worth of equipment. Without them life would be very difficult – imagine carving a 30 inch/75cm high figure that is in a fixed position. You’d be on your knees carving the toes and stood on a chair to carve the head!
I have Veritas clamps, Hydraclamps and a Koch clamp plus a couple of others I rarely use. Most of my work is done on the Veritas (also the cheapest) but the Hydraclamp is the easiest to manipulate and I have attached legs so that I can raise and lower it in the vice.
Hydraclamps have been made for donkey’s years for engineers. They are very expensive new, but there must be thousands around – try E-bay if you want to find one
I’ve seen clamps made from tow hitches, bowling balls, turned wooden spheres and custom made by engineers. Whatever you can find, do not neglect a good clamp – it is vital.
For me the bandsaw is essential equipment. The two dimensional bandsawing of an accurate drawing is vital to my way of working. It saves days of work, roughing out and it gives almost perfect accuracy. On occasions one can bandsaw three dimensionally.
I use a twenty year old Startrite 501 with a ¼ inch/6mm 6TPI skip-tooth blade. My bandsaw will cut just short of 12 inches /30cm of hardwood. It will cut your hand off very easily also!
Burrs are a great help. The advent of cheap diamond burrs from China has revolutionised carving. I used to pay more for one diamond burr than I now pay for a set of 20, and they are available in different grits. I use a NSK Elekter GX which is powerful, quiet and has a huge range of accessories. Also the collets are released by a flick of a lever – no little rods or spanners.
That’s really the only machines I have apart from a set of Arbotech power chisels I was given and used on the spiral staircase of ‘Harlequin Triumphant’. In fairness, they are very efficient, but far too noisy and extremely expensive.
There are lots more tools and equipment available, some useless and most less than wonderful. I can see that some carvers could get good use from the power stuff. The adverts always say it is quicker. I do not want quicker – I want better!
Plans
Many carvers work without plans and many more work with nothing but other people’s ready made plans. It is quite possible to make up a figure from one photograph but if you really cannot draw, get your camera, hire a model (sharing the cost with friends if necessary) and in a couple of hours you could have over twenty poses from four sides.
Personally, I would no more start a carving without accurate drawings than build a house without plans.
Before you make plans you have to have an idea. Now I speak as one who has to sell carvings to live and what I have come to realise is that, mostly, people do not buy ‘carvings’ they buy ideas, images they can relate to. It is easy to make up projects you might like to carve, but for most people that imaginative streak soon dries up. What I have found works for me is to set myself a theme for an exhibition. The obvious subjects are soon dealt with, after which I start thinking around the theme and that’s when I come up with more original ideas.
Anatomy
Anatomy is a no go area for many aspiring carvers. It is too complicated, has too many long, forgettable Latin words and doesn’t really seem to relate to real people. But it is vital to figure carving. The skeleton is essential to creating my working plans. Bones do not change. The bones in one leg must be the same length as the bones in the other leg, so by pure geometry you can work out where the legs can possibly be. Goldfinger’s ‘Human Anatomy for Artists’ is my bible.
Seeing
The greatest difficulties I have had with students is the inability to see three dimensional shapes. Now to be fair, we live in a two dimensional world of photographs, paintings, television – all two dimensional profiles. We do not see three dimensionally. In relation to carving what does this mean? An eye is seen as an almond shaped opening in the face – not as a section of a small sphere embedded in the skull. A head is seen as a profile – nose sticking out, skull, ears etc. However, there are experiments to prove that looking at the front view what we see is – two eyes and a mouth. Until you really look at the shape of things you will continue to produce the flat almond eyes and the square heads. Modelling in clay might help, but the real answer is to see what is really there.
Carving
The second big problem I have had with students is their sheer inability to manipulate gouges. This was most noticeable when working on the hair. A flowing lock of hair was reduced to a series of straight sharp cuts that produced a very good image of a pile of straw. When I started carving, I followed the instructions of a Victorian book on woodcarving which began with endless practice cuts – straight lines, curves, circles, spirals and so on. These I performed every evening over and over. I would suggest that many aspiring carvers would benefit from a similar course of training.
Details
Almost any degree of detail can be carved into wood. In the V & A there is a boxwood rosary bead, fifteenth century, I think. It is about the size of a golf ball and opens to show a nativity scene on one side and a crucifixion on the other, with three figures on the crosses, Roman soldiers with spears – the whole scene. There are expressions on the faces – incredible.
Detail is great, but should be balanced against plain areas. There must be a place for the eye to rest. I tell students to carve detail as if you were cutting a splinter out of your hand. Use a very sharp tool, think very carefully what you are going to do and do it once, cleanly. Don’t pick at it – you’ll end up with a bloody mess – on your finger that is!
Sanding
Many people don’t sand because they like a tooled finish. I’ve always been a sander and I’ve made a science of it. I use the best abrasive I can find and religiously work through the grits – when I put a coat of sealer on it shows up the scratches and I scrape them off with a knife blade and then re-sand. I use numerous other abrasive tools to get into the corners and hollows.
Polishing
Years ago I used wax polish which is lovely, but it does not last. Occasionally clients had a go at waxing and in the process damaged the piece, or, they would leave it the dust would stick to it and it became dull and dirty.
I stopped using wax and used hairspray (firm hold) which is just shellac, but it is very fragile. Now I use polyurethane varnish (matt) which I wipe on in a thin coat about four times. It is tough, waterproof and never needs attention.
Bases
The base a carving stands on should be an integral part of the design, not an afterthought when the carving is finished. Very often this will be just a block, like so many of the statues we see. But like the frame of a painting it should enhance the piece. Of course nowadays many paintings are presented without frames and many carvings are left without bases. However, this should be a considered decision.
I prefer to use marble for blocks because it is a contrast with the wood. I believe gold picture frames succeed because generally there is no gold in the painting. I have made some very elaborate bases and I’ll admit they do not always succeed – too busy or too fussy. But we have to try.
Photography
Most people want to photograph their work if only for themselves. In fairness, it is very difficult to find professional photographers who specialise in art/craft work. I gave up on them and spent much time and money equipping myself. It’s true to say that it is 99% preparation and 1% pressing the shutter. I suppose the work of preparation has now been replaced by the work of manipulation on the computer. However it is achieved, if you are trying to submit your work to a magazine, client or gallery, good photographs are essential.
Motivation
People have occasionally asked me if I would still carve if I had loads of money. My first reaction is to say no because there are so many other things to do, places to see etc. But some of us have the itch to create things and I think after a spell of doing other things I would feel the pull of carving. I’m not a particularly great fan of wood but it is a convenient medium and after all these years I think I’m getting to understand it, but mostly I’m interested in the end product. In Malta, I loved carving the local limestone, which was much easier and cheaper than wood. The one piece I have has been stood in the garden for 10 years – most timber would not have lasted that long!
Selling
For those who want to sell woodcarvings for more than knick-knack prices, life will be difficult. You need financial backing, which I had from an excellent bank manager – my overdraft was frightening. To make a mark you need an exhibition of say, twenty pieces. Say one piece takes three weeks; twenty pieces will take sixty weeks that have to be financed, along with exhibition costs. There are galleries that will take your work but they can be patronising, restrictive and charge hefty commission. There’s also the internet, but if you make one piece and sell it on the net, it disappears and it is never physically enjoyed by anyone except the owner and their circle.
Most of us need someone to bounce ideas off, to help with various tasks and most of all to give us an honest opinion. Very few people will tell you that you’re doing it wrong. My wife Betty, does all these things – and organises my exhibitions, does the administrative work, gives me encouragement, handles all the selling and protects me from the cold hard world so that I can live in my ‘Paradise of Fools’
Ian Norbury - September 2011
Ian Norbury
I was brought up in a house in the country with no electricity. In the evenings my father sat drawing pencil portraits of his family. Looking back, they seem good, but they may not have been. However, drawing was more normal than writing to me and I pursued it much as kids today play computer games. When I was fifteen, I painted a portrait at school, of a fellow pupil, whose father paid £50 for it - a large sum in 1964. Needless to say, the school kept the £50 but my course was set to be an artist.
I left school that year, got a job and began selling paintings on the side. In 1973 I went to train as a teacher of art. At the college they had carving chisels. I had tried my hand in 1971 using Xacto knives and a block of builder’s wood. I made a devil’s head. Finding all the carving tools in the college plus a supply of wood inspired me to learn more. The technician, John Havard (an ex-cabinetmaker) showed me how to sharpen the tools on a sanding machine. Soon I received a small commission to replace a piece of carving on an old chair, which led me to working for the antiques trade. Copying old carvings is a good way to learn and antique dealers are very particular when they want to pass off a fake!
Using a Victorian book on woodcarving I spent countless evenings practising gouge cuts and chip carved decorations. After some years in antiques, I decided to carve figures, animals and birds. Eventually I ended up where I am now.
My point in writing this, after 40 years experience in woodcarving, is to pick out what really matters, what is really necessary to achieve a good result and what would be great if you had it, but can do without. For example, it would be nice to have a Ferrari, but you can get there on a bike, if you have the will.
For a few years I carved a wide variety of subjects – horses, because I had been a painter of horses, animals, birds and some figures. After a while I realised that my birds would never fly and most of the animals I carved I had never even seen. I also copied a lot of stuff from books such as ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Gradually I came to the conclusion that I must do something more original. One of the world’s most popular and original artists is Salvador Dali. Why? Few people could claim to understand his paintings – but in my opinion it is a combination of technical perfection with an enigma that fascinates. I have tried, in my own humble way, to achieve a level of technical perfection with an enigma or a story. When I carve a naked woman holding a piece of cloth it can be ‘Salome’ – a bizarre biblical story – or it can be ‘The Stripper’ – a modern concept, or it might be ‘After the Bath’ - a young girl about to dry herself. Of course, it could simply be ‘Nude holding a piece of cloth’.
So that is the path I took. I had an exhibition every year, soon changed to two years because of the numbers of carvings needed and the lead time for publicity. An exhibition needs a minimum of approximately 20 pieces as you cannot drag people half way across England to see half a dozen carvings! Also, exhibitions organised properly (and my wife Betty does them properly) cost a lot of money. There has to be enough work to cover the costs and two years work.
Fortunately for me, this was happening during a period of considerable affluence in Britain and sales were excellent. Also the property we owned had a gallery, so my work could be displayed all the year round. I had a bank manager, Malcolm Winlow, who backed me to the hilt – you need a lot of backing to work for two years and launch an exhibition.
Well that is the background – Now to the technicalities.
Wood
Wood is the basic material I must all live with. It is far more available now than thirty or forty years ago, when I found my first limewood being made into pallets. I have carved a great many types of timber scavenged from different sources – table legs, a truck bed, firewood etc. Almost any wood can be carved but size is usually a sticking point. Most timbers are available up to four or maybe five inches thick. Old beams and such like can be found in very large size, but are usually full of faults. Timber merchants will rarely cut and dry timber over six inches thick because of excessive wastage.
Long ago I decided that I had to source my own wood. I came to an agreement with Jack Clark, my timber merchant that I would pay for a lime tree and he would cut it to nine or ten inch boards and store it. After a few years I would start to use it. This has worked well for me and I would recommend it to any carver who wants to work on anything but a very small scale. You’d be surprised how quickly the years will pass – alarmingly so as you get older! I now limit myself to limewood and walnut – the walnut from veneer cores. I do not like grainy woods because the figuring intrudes on the forms. Walnut, although grainy, tends to be kind of laid back and doesn’t upset the shapes. Of course in other countries there will be other timbers available. Also, some carvers just laminate which I do not do.
Even with large section timber I will stick bits on - there is hardly a carved crucifix in the world that does not have the arms stuck on separately – it is traditional. If you are thinking of using green wood, my advice is - don’t! I have done it successfully, as have others, but it is a very unreliable practice with a very high rate of failure.
Alternatively you could just stick to relief carving – no problem then!
Tools
For many of us tools become an end in themselves. I plead guilty to the addiction, but I have kicked it! When I was restoring antiques, I was the proud possessor of over a hundred and twenty wooden moulding planes of which five were useful.
Now I have about sixty carving gouges, having recently sold another sixty or seventy, and I reckon I could sell another forty and not miss them. Nearly all carvings can be carried out with a dozen gouges, a knife and a few burrs. I have scores of burrs, many blunt and useless, but I do not like to throw them away. Do I hear any other guilty pleas?
I have used many makes of gouges and would unequivocally recommend the Swiss Pfeil brand. The company has never done anything for me, which several other companies certainly have, but I just think they’re the best. I see professional carvers all over the world using them, even in Bali.
People will carve with just about anything from a piece of glass to a chainsaw but the average carver just wants something that holds an edge. The edge has to be sharpened and after trying umpteen different methods from white Arkansas stones to emery paper, I’ve plumped for a powered water stone followed by a hard felt wheel on a grinder with a green polishing paste on it. It may not produce the finest edge, but it is so quick that you always have a reasonably good edge. I would also recommend an anti slash glove when using a knife and I am extremely grateful to the guy in America who gave me one. Cutting a slice of my finger was one of the worst experiences of my life. I use the glove religiously.
I’ve met so many carvers who hate sanding. This is I believe because they use cheap rubbishy sandpaper and they don’t really know how to do it properly. I will always remember a lady on a course who said she hated sanding, and produced a box of emery nail files – no wonder she hated it!! Sanding is a whole art in itself – just as important as the carving. Some people, of course, prefer a tooled finish, but that is another story.
Measuring instruments are my favourites and I use them constantly, yet on courses in the States I have had an entire class of ten without a pair of dividers between them. They must have better eyesight than mine!
In Bali they hold the carving between their feet – I’ve watched them do it. An excellent system if you are double jointed and have prehensile toes. Lesser mortals must use mechanical devices that are very expensive. Anyone watching my blog will have seen me using three different ones this year, plus the bench vice and the bench – something like £1,500 worth of equipment. Without them life would be very difficult – imagine carving a 30 inch/75cm high figure that is in a fixed position. You’d be on your knees carving the toes and stood on a chair to carve the head!
I have Veritas clamps, Hydraclamps and a Koch clamp plus a couple of others I rarely use. Most of my work is done on the Veritas (also the cheapest) but the Hydraclamp is the easiest to manipulate and I have attached legs so that I can raise and lower it in the vice.
Hydraclamps have been made for donkey’s years for engineers. They are very expensive new, but there must be thousands around – try E-bay if you want to find one
I’ve seen clamps made from tow hitches, bowling balls, turned wooden spheres and custom made by engineers. Whatever you can find, do not neglect a good clamp – it is vital.
For me the bandsaw is essential equipment. The two dimensional bandsawing of an accurate drawing is vital to my way of working. It saves days of work, roughing out and it gives almost perfect accuracy. On occasions one can bandsaw three dimensionally.
I use a twenty year old Startrite 501 with a ¼ inch/6mm 6TPI skip-tooth blade. My bandsaw will cut just short of 12 inches /30cm of hardwood. It will cut your hand off very easily also!
Burrs are a great help. The advent of cheap diamond burrs from China has revolutionised carving. I used to pay more for one diamond burr than I now pay for a set of 20, and they are available in different grits. I use a NSK Elekter GX which is powerful, quiet and has a huge range of accessories. Also the collets are released by a flick of a lever – no little rods or spanners.
That’s really the only machines I have apart from a set of Arbotech power chisels I was given and used on the spiral staircase of ‘Harlequin Triumphant’. In fairness, they are very efficient, but far too noisy and extremely expensive.
There are lots more tools and equipment available, some useless and most less than wonderful. I can see that some carvers could get good use from the power stuff. The adverts always say it is quicker. I do not want quicker – I want better!
Plans
Many carvers work without plans and many more work with nothing but other people’s ready made plans. It is quite possible to make up a figure from one photograph but if you really cannot draw, get your camera, hire a model (sharing the cost with friends if necessary) and in a couple of hours you could have over twenty poses from four sides.
Personally, I would no more start a carving without accurate drawings than build a house without plans.
Before you make plans you have to have an idea. Now I speak as one who has to sell carvings to live and what I have come to realise is that, mostly, people do not buy ‘carvings’ they buy ideas, images they can relate to. It is easy to make up projects you might like to carve, but for most people that imaginative streak soon dries up. What I have found works for me is to set myself a theme for an exhibition. The obvious subjects are soon dealt with, after which I start thinking around the theme and that’s when I come up with more original ideas.
Anatomy
Anatomy is a no go area for many aspiring carvers. It is too complicated, has too many long, forgettable Latin words and doesn’t really seem to relate to real people. But it is vital to figure carving. The skeleton is essential to creating my working plans. Bones do not change. The bones in one leg must be the same length as the bones in the other leg, so by pure geometry you can work out where the legs can possibly be. Goldfinger’s ‘Human Anatomy for Artists’ is my bible.
Seeing
The greatest difficulties I have had with students is the inability to see three dimensional shapes. Now to be fair, we live in a two dimensional world of photographs, paintings, television – all two dimensional profiles. We do not see three dimensionally. In relation to carving what does this mean? An eye is seen as an almond shaped opening in the face – not as a section of a small sphere embedded in the skull. A head is seen as a profile – nose sticking out, skull, ears etc. However, there are experiments to prove that looking at the front view what we see is – two eyes and a mouth. Until you really look at the shape of things you will continue to produce the flat almond eyes and the square heads. Modelling in clay might help, but the real answer is to see what is really there.
Carving
The second big problem I have had with students is their sheer inability to manipulate gouges. This was most noticeable when working on the hair. A flowing lock of hair was reduced to a series of straight sharp cuts that produced a very good image of a pile of straw. When I started carving, I followed the instructions of a Victorian book on woodcarving which began with endless practice cuts – straight lines, curves, circles, spirals and so on. These I performed every evening over and over. I would suggest that many aspiring carvers would benefit from a similar course of training.
Details
Almost any degree of detail can be carved into wood. In the V & A there is a boxwood rosary bead, fifteenth century, I think. It is about the size of a golf ball and opens to show a nativity scene on one side and a crucifixion on the other, with three figures on the crosses, Roman soldiers with spears – the whole scene. There are expressions on the faces – incredible.
Detail is great, but should be balanced against plain areas. There must be a place for the eye to rest. I tell students to carve detail as if you were cutting a splinter out of your hand. Use a very sharp tool, think very carefully what you are going to do and do it once, cleanly. Don’t pick at it – you’ll end up with a bloody mess – on your finger that is!
Sanding
Many people don’t sand because they like a tooled finish. I’ve always been a sander and I’ve made a science of it. I use the best abrasive I can find and religiously work through the grits – when I put a coat of sealer on it shows up the scratches and I scrape them off with a knife blade and then re-sand. I use numerous other abrasive tools to get into the corners and hollows.
Polishing
Years ago I used wax polish which is lovely, but it does not last. Occasionally clients had a go at waxing and in the process damaged the piece, or, they would leave it the dust would stick to it and it became dull and dirty.
I stopped using wax and used hairspray (firm hold) which is just shellac, but it is very fragile. Now I use polyurethane varnish (matt) which I wipe on in a thin coat about four times. It is tough, waterproof and never needs attention.
Bases
The base a carving stands on should be an integral part of the design, not an afterthought when the carving is finished. Very often this will be just a block, like so many of the statues we see. But like the frame of a painting it should enhance the piece. Of course nowadays many paintings are presented without frames and many carvings are left without bases. However, this should be a considered decision.
I prefer to use marble for blocks because it is a contrast with the wood. I believe gold picture frames succeed because generally there is no gold in the painting. I have made some very elaborate bases and I’ll admit they do not always succeed – too busy or too fussy. But we have to try.
Photography
Most people want to photograph their work if only for themselves. In fairness, it is very difficult to find professional photographers who specialise in art/craft work. I gave up on them and spent much time and money equipping myself. It’s true to say that it is 99% preparation and 1% pressing the shutter. I suppose the work of preparation has now been replaced by the work of manipulation on the computer. However it is achieved, if you are trying to submit your work to a magazine, client or gallery, good photographs are essential.
Motivation
People have occasionally asked me if I would still carve if I had loads of money. My first reaction is to say no because there are so many other things to do, places to see etc. But some of us have the itch to create things and I think after a spell of doing other things I would feel the pull of carving. I’m not a particularly great fan of wood but it is a convenient medium and after all these years I think I’m getting to understand it, but mostly I’m interested in the end product. In Malta, I loved carving the local limestone, which was much easier and cheaper than wood. The one piece I have has been stood in the garden for 10 years – most timber would not have lasted that long!
Selling
For those who want to sell woodcarvings for more than knick-knack prices, life will be difficult. You need financial backing, which I had from an excellent bank manager – my overdraft was frightening. To make a mark you need an exhibition of say, twenty pieces. Say one piece takes three weeks; twenty pieces will take sixty weeks that have to be financed, along with exhibition costs. There are galleries that will take your work but they can be patronising, restrictive and charge hefty commission. There’s also the internet, but if you make one piece and sell it on the net, it disappears and it is never physically enjoyed by anyone except the owner and their circle.
Most of us need someone to bounce ideas off, to help with various tasks and most of all to give us an honest opinion. Very few people will tell you that you’re doing it wrong. My wife Betty, does all these things – and organises my exhibitions, does the administrative work, gives me encouragement, handles all the selling and protects me from the cold hard world so that I can live in my ‘Paradise of Fools’
Ian Norbury - September 2011