Finishing progress: Wood Carving

After a few weeks of work, I am approaching the end of my wood carving progress for my project responding to the prompt "it's all about time".

Although it was frustrating at first, using with a sculpture medium that takes more time to work with (rather than say, clay, which you can remold and reshape a lot faster than wood) allowed me to think more carefully about the forms that I was creating.

Here are some things I learned:

• DON'T try to fight the wood --- you will LOSE. Work perpendicular to its grain or it will mercilessly punish you.

• The smaller/more precise the tool, the less likely it is the wood will chip.

• Rifflers are rather useless.

• While drawing can usually be done from one or two angles (turning the paper upside or sideways to check composition), sculpting, even relief sculpture, must be done from many angles (turning the piece from almost every angle to check that your composition and value are consistent)