However, yesterday I carved for about 6-8 hours. The plan was to do 3 hours and then read but there is something very soothing about this carving. Part of it might be that with ear plugs in, I am not distracted by much of anything. It may not look like I have done much but I have. The heart on the left side is ready to take to carving class. I used my craving chisels to outline the heart and to keep the shape throughout the excavation. Then, I spent over 3 hours excavating all the unwanted material down about 1/2" using my Dremel as a router and a extra piece of wood to keep it level as I removed material from the edge. Not sure it is anyone else's technique, but it sure helped me. You can only remove so much material with each pass (I made 8) and each pass took up to 40 minutes until I decided to get braver, or maybe smarter and bumped up the speed (less than 30 minutes a pass). This is basswood and considered to be a carver's wood of choice, but probably not what I will carve if I ever put my carving on Kevin's furniture (He uses cherry, walnut, maple, and oak for most pieces).
Then I decided to play with a leftover chunk of poplar (used for some inside portion of a piece Kevin was building) that is considered a hardwood but quite stringy. Prep time to outline the heart took a little longer because my chisel curves did not match as well as on the other heart. I decided to test my chisels on this one and then use another section with the Dremel. Just want to understand more about how each wood behaves with various techniques.
Why a heart motif? It has in and out curves and several points to deal with so I get to try different angles and approach each area with different turning techniques. I still a very newbie at this carving, but with a woodworker in the family I should have plenty of leftover wood to carve.
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