3rd May 2024: Woodcarving with OVAS Member Simon Gray
​Thanks Chris, for these photos and for the write-up.

How does he know there's a duck in there?

A mother and small daughter were looking at one of Simon's blocks of wood and some of his his carvings of waterfowl.

​This was the question that Simon overheard the little girl ask her mum ...

A very good question. How does Simon know there's a duck in there?  Simon did his best to answer in his entertaining talk as he walked us through the process of turning a fine-grained block of wood into a highly realistic mallard or other waterfowl.
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The first stage was drawing cut-outs [above] and attaching them to the block. Then hewing out chunks within these limits to get a first approximation.

Simon was able to explain the umpteen intricate stages of carving, each highly skilled and needing extraordinary levels of patience, imagination, and 3-D visualisation. Wood became overlapping feathers, which became shades of brown through the use of pyrography and, to a small extent, application of acrylic gouache for the final touches.

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