Ralph,
pictured to the right, is a basswood carving about 13 inches tall was a
commission carving requested by a local politician. This is a caricature
of Alberta Premier, Ralph Klein and was presented to him and his wife Colleen
during a provincial election campaign.
Check this site for more
characters once in awhile. Below you will see half of a chess set that
I completed in 1995. It was carved from basswood with each half stained
a different color. Carving a chess set can be boring if you try to carve
each respective piece as a exact copy of a corresponding one. For this
set I decided to have fun, I did not use patterns the only critera I set
was that corresponding pieces had to be the same height as the others.
There is no law that says chess pieces have to be identical, playing chess
with pieces that have unique personalities is also more fun. I called this
set "Wizards and Friends"
The
old story about the billy goat and the trolls served as a basic idea for
this carving. "No Goats Son" is another carving inspired by Steven Prescott.
I used his basic block head pattern in carving the two trolls and a picture
from an animal book to create the goat. Carved in basswood and mounted
on a basswood slab. The large troll was about 8 inches in height. Delta
ceramcoat acrylic paints were once again my choice of paint.