Details add to any carving. Feathers are tough to carve but worth the practice. Some simple hair ties, and a head dress, along with those feathers, can make a carving really pop! I am considering not cutting in pupils. What do you think?
Finished this guy tonight. He is smaller than normal. Cottonwood can be splity, and the nose came off at one point. I got it back on though. I thought the cheekbones looked good, but I have a lot of work to do yet learning noses and lips.
I carved this for a friend who gave me a Zune 32 gig. I found a wormy spot in the beard which made it brittle and discolored. Carving butternut is great though. I wish I had gone deeper in the wood and popped the face out more. He loved it.
Here are some pics of carving in various stages. All of these would be in 2016.
My name is Nate Elarton. I am 50 and started woodcarving about 8 years ago. I married for 29 years, have amazing kids, pastor a church, play some instruments, and want to be a better woodcarver.
I am by no means a professional woodcarver. But I love it. Back in 2007 I went to visit a friend in TN, Marty Eddinger, an amazing woodcarver and teacher now, and he asked me to come to his shed and to check out a hobby he was getting interested in. He handed me a chisel and I ran it through some Tennessee Cedar and I have love woodcarving ever since.
I don’t teach any classes, I am not that good, and I have only carved and learned from Marty and another amazing carver Alec Lacasse in Rochester, MI.
Woodcarving releases some creativity in me, but I find it peaceful, theraputic. I pastor a large church in Temperance, MI and another in Toledo Ohio. I have several pastors on staff, and there is so much to do. Woodcarving gives me peace as I escape the pressures of leadership, and it helps me be a better pastor and I hope I am becoming a better woodcarver also.
I have carved in the round, whittled, carved with chisels, powercarved, and I have enjoyed it all. I seem to go back to faces. I love looking at a carving and feel it’s alive looking back at you. That is a great feeling to me.
I also launched this site as a place to index in pics some of my carvings.
Nate Elarton Wood Sculpting 