I found a nice piece of wood, that was cut down from around the edge of a pond bank. I’m not sure exactly what type of wood it is, but under the bark is a very nice white wood that was fairly easy to carve. I decided to put together some of the things that I have been working on in my carvings and try my hand at carving a face in the stick.
The face came out decent and I gave it the look of a sleepy man with his eyes closed. I then used a piece of scotch tape as a template for an even ring around the stick in various spots. With the tape template, I used my knife to cut around the stick above and below the tape line. Then with a gouge, I started removing the bark down to the white wood. After roughing out the rings, I then went back with the gouge and gave the rings a textured look, by running the gouge, up and down the ring area. It also made a nice looking decorative teeth around the edges of the rings.
After about 6 or 7 coats of polyurethane, I now have my first completed stick that has actual carving done on it.
