Day 2
More of the same. Assisting Peter with elf-making. Today I graduated to wood carving! Yesterday I mostly watched (in fact, while carving a small hole in a hand, my dremel slipped and Peter promptly took the hand back and told me to watch him finish it. Damn. It didn’t help that I was using an ‘especially precious bit.’ But today I was told to do another set of arms just like yesterday’s and to carve the blocks into real arm-shapes. I’m still getting a handle on carving. I have a hard time ‘seeing’ the shape of an object in the unformed block. Maybe I just need to develop those visualization skills. Even while carving something as simple as arms, I kept having to stop and really think through the shapes and angles and how the pieces would join together. Maybe if I practice my drawing it’ll help…
I also carved a second elf body – this one is an old man with a bit of a hunch. I carved out something that looked great from the front, but absolutely deformed in profile. There was really no salvaging this beast, so Peter suggested that I re-create the first body and just change the placement of the head to create the impression of a hunch.
I was pretty frustrated with having to re-do my work until Pityu has introduced me to the joys of Hawaiian folk music. It really is amazing how soothing it can be. He puts it on the workshop stereo and everyone just sort of mellows into whatever it is they’re doing. Apparently, what my work has been missing is including groovy tunes in my creative process.