Beginner Relief Carving

Join us on Wednesdayevenings this season as we explore introductory relief carving tools and techniques with specialist Scottie Bellissemo.

In this class we will learn how to carve an image of your choice into a flat wood surface. This will be a high relief carving. In which we will be carving to a depth to 1/2 inch to 1 inch or so to give your drawing depth to the flat wood we are carving into.
We will take our drawing and transfer it to our wood panel and then begin the carving out of the image. We will learn how to correctly use carving tools and chisels with a mallet to chip, shape and smooth out our chosen design. In class we will also learn how to sharpen and maintain our tools for clean and easy cuts. When the work is finished we will apply an oil based finish for protection.
Expect to come away with a better understanding of a variety of carving techniques and a better sense of 3 dimensional space and the shaping of forms.
The first class will be a meet and great and a little intro into carving on some scrape wood to get a feel for what is possible on a larger scale. Your image that you choose will need to be not to large. Think like the size of a piece of copy paper or in that ballpark. I would say no larger then11 x 11 inches. If possible bring a few images to the first class so we can discuss what would be best to use. Spend some time researching what other artist have done to get a sense of what is possible. The Cincinnati Art Museum has great examples of high relief sculptures in wood if you need some inspiration.

Wednesdays (November 4th-December 18th) Beginner Relief Carving (6 - 9 PM), 7 weeks total. No class Wednesday, November 25th, 2 sessions on the final week (12/16 & 12/18). Participants should expect to spend $25 on materials outside of the class registration fee.