Months ago, I had the good fortune to attend Mary May’s class “Introduction to Relief Carving.” One of the projects was an Acanthus leaf. It lingered, unfinished, while I did other things. I recently got back to it and completed the carving. Not bad for an “Intro” class.
Find more in the Acanthus category at Mary May’s new online school for Traditional Woodcarving.
Shortly after that class, we traveled for a few weeks. Not wanting to carry 40 pounds of gouges, nor having a good place to carve, I took a book instead. Bob Yorburg and Hans Sandom’s “Acanthus Carving and Design” is a delight. Design is emphasized with an abundant collection of drawings. These are then followed by a collection of beautifully carved pieces.
A legal pad and a pencil substituted for a roll of gouges as I copied many of the drawings. One can gain a very good feel for how many of the curves start rather flat and accelerate to beautiful curls and sweeps. Highly recommended!
Were those drawings free hand or traced?
Why would anyone trace if they were trying to learn to draw correctly? Free hand!
Lovely!
Oops, blogger says my comment was a bit too short, so I will expand it to a complete sentence:
Those sketches are lovely!
Thanks Bonnie!
How many goes did you have at each drawing? It would take me many, many goes to get it right.
Nice!
Dan
Only one go at each Dan. But, sometimes lots of erasing and redrawing of each curve. The interesting aspect of these leaves is that none of the curves are constant radius. The curves either get tighter, or more open, depending on which direction you’re drawing. If any curve is drawn with a constant radius, it simply looks wrong.
Thanks for stopping by. Good luck with your drawings.