WOOD CARVING - STEPHANIE

I have been neglecting my wood carving of late, too many other college projects to do. But I have just finished these two pieces. This time I have used Iroko wood. Iroko is a large hardwood tree from west coast of Africa. It is one of the woods sometimes referred to as African Teak. It is used mainly for boat-building, domestic flooring and furniture. I did not find it ideal for carving letters, it seemed to work better with the bigger carved letters rather then the small. But it polished very nicely giving a very smooth finish.

The first piece LOVE, was just me messing about with some free hand drawn letters, I was happy with the L and O but not so happy with the V and E.

The second piece STEPHANIE, was a personal work. Stephanie for those who don't know was one of my children who died some years ago aged 2. My wife and I published a small children's book about her life called Happy Days. When you lose someone people often say " Oh I am sorry for your loss". But we never lost Stephanie we know exactly where she is. 


Anyway back to carving the wood, I found cutting these smaller letter forms very difficult you need very small chisels. It really helps to choose a celtic letter form, it covers a multitude of bad carving. As for the angel I carved,  well its more of an engraving really, I did this using whats know as a V chisel.


P.S. If you would like to read Happy Days go to:


Happy Days The Story of Stephanie Whitton