Demonstrating relief carving techniques at a sign maker's trade fair - SignLink Live 2017

I've done many things as a woodcarver over the last twenty three years but one thing I've never tried is demonstrating at a trade fair. The chance to do so came in October with an invitation to carve at SignLink Live in Telford.

The stand was part of an area called 'Craftsman's Corner', where traditional skills related to sign making were demonstrated amongst all the vinyl cutting machines and other modern machinery associated with the trade. 

I used the opportunity to produce a charming commissioned piece that was requested just before the show began - a relief carving of a kitten in oak.

Apart from me, there were four other craftspeople showing their skills: Simon, of Nefarious Pinstriping, was doing pinstriping - a very exacting and skilful craft where precise lines and other designs are applied to surfaces. It is particularly associated with owners of motorbikes and hot rods.

Pete, of PKM signs, demonstrated gilding techniques. I couldn't resist buying a copy of Mctaggart's 'Practical Gilding' from him!

On the fourth stand, Neil of H signs and Tim of Merlin Signs demonstrated traditional sign painting techniques. It was very interesting talking to them about which paints they prefer to use. One useful tip that they mentioned was to undercoat with aluminium oxide as it lasts the longest.

It was great fun chatting with these folks, as well as interested people passing by. Quite a few visitors were keen to get pointers for their own hobby carving and I was happy to help! They also came along with their own tips and interesting ideas too, so it wasn't all one-way conversation by any means.

Many people also said how much they enjoyed having the contrast there between the modern advanced technology of sign making and the slower, precise ways of the older crafts. I hope to be able to participate in next year's planned 'Sign Show' in Birmingham. If you are in the sign trade, I may see you there!

Carving and painting a sign in Greek

This one was a first for me: creating an oak sign with the wording in Greek (not a language that I'm familiar with). It will be hung on a house in Greece and so I waited for the recipients to okay the lettering before starting work. 

In case you are wondering, the sign says 'House of Flowers'.

The edges of the sign were deliberately left with tool marks to seem more rustic and the white lettering will stand out even if the oak starts to age and 'silver' on exposure to the weather.

I really enjoyed painting the hibiscus flower. It's nice to lay down the carving tools and pick up a paintbrush now and again.

Some recently carved wooden signs and lettering, for clients including a cider maker and a well-known DJ (together with a sign featuring a portrait of a cat)

I've had a few interesting commissions lately, some of which I'll show on the blog when they are closer to being completed. Some of the recent commissions involving carved lettering have been quite unusual too...

This seat for a swing was carved from locally-sourced oak, which originally grew on the Quantock Hills in Somerset. It was shaped using modern and traditional techniques, including knives and drawknives, then carved with the name of the girl who will receive it. 

The wood was originally destined to become part of a ship's figurehead in memorial of a friend. After that project fell through, it's nice to know that this timber is going to be enjoyed by children playing and having fun.

This sign was carved for clients who wanted one of their Devon Rex cats to be shown on it. It's a bit nerve-wracking carving a portrait of a pet for someone, as they will always know the animal far better than I can from a photograph. 

Happily, they were very pleased with the outcome. It was quite a relief when a visitor to my studio saw the almost-completed carving and said (with no prompting) that it looked like a Devon Rex!

The next sign was carved for the Lenches Cider Company. I was particularly pleased with the lettering on this sign, as the squared shapes of the font used were not that easy to carve by hand and they came out very well. The oak was also a very nicely figured piece.

This project involved carving an inscription on a chopping board for a client, who had commissioned me to carve a similar project before. As you might imagine, it always feels satisfying when someone asks for another carving to be done for them because they are happy with the previous one.

An unusual next project, as the lettering had to be carved onto a sphere. I wondered at the time whether a computer-controlled routing machine would be able to do this kind of work?

I was also asked recently to correct someone else's letter cutting! The client had bought a rustic oak bench but wasn't happy with the inscription on it. It did look like it had been cut by someone with a blunt router blade who was in a bit of a hurry.

What a great afternoon, re-cutting the letters in their beautiful garden!

Everyone agreed that the lettering looked better once re-cut too:

 I received a lovely email afterwards saying ;

'Dear Alistair, Just to thank you once again fro the splendid job you did on my garden bench for me yesterday. I have to say also that it was a genuine pleasure to meet you and 'do business' with you! I wish you every success in the future'.

Finally, this sign was carved for a DJ and music producer. I'm reluctant to name him on the blog, as I'd rather respect his privacy (sorry!). I will say that he was a big part in the early drum and bass scene and is still playing to big crowds now. The sign was carved from oak and then stained.

If you'd like to see more of my previous letter cutting work, have a look at some by clicking on this link to the page on my website.

A sneak preview of some of the carvings on the bench for the Bristol Downs

I've been very busy for the last month or two working on a big new bench that will go onto the Downs. Very few large pieces of sculpture are allowed to be permanently placed there, so it's a really exciting project.

The bench is made from oak that grew nearby and it was milled near Chelvey, just down the road. The work on making the bench has been done at my studio at Bower Ashton, so it really is a local bench for Bristol. I'm carving one of the two backrests in the photo above. Each is about 2.5 metres (about 8 feet) long and 7.5cm (3") thick. Pretty sturdy!

The bench is scheduled to be finished by December and then installed in the children's playground next to the Observatory and the Suspension Bridge in March 2015.

It will be a cross between an information board and a bench, so people can read about wildlife and people associated with the area while having a comfy place to sit. There will also be a 'treasure trail' of carved little spiders for visitors to find; some easy to spot, some not so easy!

Here's a preview of a few of the other carvings for you to see:

The purseweb spider, a tiny relative of tarantulas that lives in the Avon Gorge.

The 'Bristol Dinosaur', Thecodontosaurus

Carving one of the bearers that will hold the bench up. It shows a brachiopod, a shellfish that is found fossilised in the Carboniferous limestone under the Downs. Much larger than life-sized though!

This bearer shows the coral Lithostrotion, also found in the Carboniferous limestone.

Chalkhill Blue butterflies live in the Gorge. They are nationally uncommon, living in very specific areas in the south of England.

 

This is Libby Houston, who is a poet, botanist and rope access expert. She has had several books of poetry published, and gave permission for me to carve two lines from her poem 'The Trees Dance' onto the bench. They read:

'Forest-father, mighty Oak,

on my back the lightning-stroke'

Libby spends much of her time abseiling into the Avon Gorge and mapping the rare plants that live there. For her work, she was awarded the prestigious H.H. Bloomer award by the Linnean society. Amongst other achievements, she has discovered some of the very rare hybrids of Whitebeam trees that grow in the hard-to-reach parts of the Gorge and nowhere else, one is even named after her: Sorbus x houstoniae. There is only one specimen of this tree known to exist and Libby kindly gave me some examples of its leaves to copy.

I researched most of the information for the bench myself, but could not have done it without the help and advice of a few people, who I'd like to thank here; 

Francis Greenacre has been a great help, providing feedback, liaising with the members of the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society (who commissioned the bench) and also supplying very useful images and ideas, particularly about Brunel's designs for the Suspension Bridge. Thanks also to RoseMary and Linda of CHIS, for meeting and chatting about ideas.

Ray Barnett, Mark Pajak and Isla Gladstone at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery all gave their time to meet and discuss ideas and images for wildlife and fossil subjects to use. Mark and Isla also supplied very helpful images to use.

Dr Clive Lovatt, Richard Bland and Linda Edwards helped in researching the poetry featured on the bench, as well as supplying information about local poet Peter Gabbitass who is one of the subjects.

Libby Houston very kindly gave permission to use her poetry and supplied leaves to copy, as well as explaining her work and checking the facts were correct! It was great to meet her.

Thanks also to Joe Cooper of Touchwood Enterprises, Andy O'Neill and Sam Mond, without whom I might not have had any local timber to carve into in the first place.

What's been going on recently? Carved oak signs, teaching woodcarving in Bristol and secret jobs!

There's been a mix of different work keeping me busy recently. I've worked on a couple of commissions lettercutting in oak :

Here's another house plaque, carved in oak for someone who is very keen on the 'Star Wars' films. It was fun carving the ewok in relief!

There's also been a commission carving 'rope' for the skilled furniture maker Jim Sharples.  Jim is working on an oak stand for the ship's bell from HMS Cornwall and wanted some carved 'rope' wrapped around the top crosspiece, to give a suitably nautical look to the finished piece. Getting it all laid out correctly was a bit of a puzzle, but I'm happy with the results. This bell stand may well end up in the Maritime Museum, which is a nice thought.

A pleasant Friday was also spent teaching Matt relief carving in oak. He spent the afternoon at my studio and got to use my own woodcarving gouges and chisels, which is something that I can only really do when working with small numbers of people, as some of the tools (such as the hook skew) are very fragile. We covered using a handsaw, a block plane and a V tool, some relief carving techniques, sharpening tools effectively and laying out a design onto the wood from a paper copy. Matt carved a chinook helicopter and seemed to really enjoy learning some of the skills that are an important part of this craft.

I have also been working on a couple of jobs that I can't talk about! One was for a client in mainland Europe and I have undertaken not to discuss it online (for good reasons; it's nothing illegal either, I promise!). I will say that it was very interesting though. Another project has been one of the most interesting that I've worked on and that will be posted about in the near future, so watch this space.

Sometimes, I have a big project on and can't discuss it until the finished carvings are unveiled or given to the person that they are meant for. It doesn't seem right to spoil the surprise of a gift by posting about it here and sometimes commercial clients need to keep things under wraps until a grand unveiling or promotion is completed.

Occasionally, a client will also ask me not to write about a job on my blog, for various reasons. Perhaps they wish to keep it personal to them or they need it to be anonymous. Needless to say, I always honour such requests.

So if you see gaps in the blog, don't think that I've stopped carving or blogging. Just wait and see what the next few posts bring!

A carved cedar log as a sign for Rock Meadow, a new housing development in the Forest of Dean

This carved Cedar of Lebanon log is a sign for a new development at Redmarley in the Forest of Dean and was commissioned by Severn Vale Housing.

The piece has been carved to show animals and plants that can found in the local area. The bottom 40-50cm will be set into the ground in concrete, so that part only has notches cut into it. Above this is a band of carved rocks, as the development is called 'Rock Meadow'.

The carved animals include two rabbits, a shrew, two hazel dormice and their nest, a peacock butterfly, a comma butterfly and a dragonfly. 

The flowers are wild daffodils and a common spotted orchid.

Most of the carving on the sign was done using an angle grinder with a Holey Galahad disc, a curved metal disc covered in spikes. I also used traditional woodcarving hand tools a lot, to carve details and the lettering.

The Rock Meadow sign was a lot of fun to make and I hope that the future residents enjoy it too.