Some funny characters in a carving commission

Jim Sharples is a very skilled furniture designer and maker based in Bristol. He needed some carvings on his latest project and asked me if I could help. 

The pieces will be part of a kitchen setup to be used by children. These boxes each have the name of the timber used to make them, as well as a simple carving showing the leaf and fruit of each tree:

I really enjoyed the next part of the commission. Jim wanted a carving on part of the woodwork that was fun and relevant to the use of the space in food preparation. I decided to carve some vegetable characters jumping into the pot to make dinner. 

After sending a sketch to Jim for approval, they were carved in shallow relief. This meant that there weren't any deep pockets in the carving that would be hard to clean properly. The veg and pasta are running or crawling along the top of the box, then jumping into the pot below.

Look out for the sunbathing broccoli, the parachuting pea and the tomato trying to 'ketchup'!

Jim has promised to send photos of the finished project and I'm really looking forward to seeing it all in place.