Grinling Gibbons – Maine class 15

Open the petals where they meet the center. Small plug cuts go in right beside the middle of the flower, a tiny number 11 first, one millimeter wide, and then a number 8 or 9 pushed through. Between two holes I leave three millimeters of wood or less. Every little opening makes a huge difference.

Ever look at a carving and wish one part of it were different? Even on a copy? You can still change it.

In class 15 I take a flower from the Gibbons original that I really do not care for. It gets a new design, with a narrow center close to the petals that grows up and opens, about five petals of different widths, and dark openings between them.

The new flower in six lines

• Even a replica leaves room for your own ideas.
• Excavate first, then plug the center.
• The order of strokes matters the way the numbers of a combination lock do.
• 3 mm of wood or less between two openings.
• Concaves drop straight down, with no spooning.
• At home, complete layer one before layer two goes on top of it.

Why change a flower in a Gibbons copy?

I don't know, but for me that flower is just too childish. We already made it wider and made some changes, and overall the piece is still maybe 80 percent authentic to the original. Well, semi original. This part I wanted to make a little more complex. A few areas I have not touched yet. Here we go off the original, and I am not rushing it.

The point I want you to hear is that you can express yourself even when you are trying to replicate original work. Add some details. Maybe even make it a little better. The center stays about where it was, although it will look different, and so will every one of the petals around it.

The idea here is a center that goes from narrow to wide, with some areas between those petals opened up. That is going to create a beautiful shadow.

Where did I carve a flower like this before?

I showed about the same flower on a Venetian style carving, one of the elements I did for a wall panel. On the Venetian flowers rosette I took a number 9, a quarter inch (about 6 mm) to begin, and established the center hole. That hole sits on an angle a little bit too.

How deep should it go? I need beautiful shadow there, but I don't want to be too extreme. Just a plug cut. That rosette goes pretty low on the wall panel, so if I make it too fragile, somebody can hit it and break it. It has to stay solid and still look paper thin.

What comes first?

Excavate all around it and get the barrel shape done. First I checked the thickness. I had about three quarters of an inch, around 19 millimeters, so that should be fine.

Which tool you start with does not matter much. A number 11, a number 10, a number 9, it is up to you. I used a number 11 at five millimeters and went around. I took only a little out. This is just preliminary. And I made sure not to go all the way underneath. I gotta be careful here. Don't break it. A perfect round is not needed yet.

Where does the center start?

With a small plug right in the middle. I used a micro tool by Dockyard. They have no markings, but I know it is about a sixteenth of an inch, about 1.5 mm, most likely a number 8. If you have a number 9, it does the same thing. I buffed it a couple of times first.

One detail here matters. Angle the tool so that, looking from the side, it points slightly outward. Straight down, and the flower sits there like a pancake. Slightly off, and the whole flower looks slanted. My plug went in about three eighths of an inch, roughly ten millimeters.

Why does the order of strokes matter?

A lock works the same way. You know the numbers of a combination lock, and the sequence still matters. Here I go from outside toward the hole in the middle, all around, and establish the center first, then work my way out. About half an inch wide in my case, twelve to fourteen millimeters.

And it cannot go straight in. I want an arching movement, a flow into the center. At the start of each pass the tool is almost lying flat, and by the end of the pass it is raising up. I take my time on that. The facets, the tool marks, serve a purpose there too.

Maybe dig the middle a little deeper too, to make a shadow line. Not a line, really. A shadow point.

What makes the center look real?

Ridges, placed unevenly, the way the middle of a real flower looks. With a smaller 11, one millimeter wide, I made the same strokes again, smaller, so they look like the real parts of a flower center. Those strokes I want really exaggerated.

And I do not place them at the same distance from each other. Random spacing looks much better. A half millimeter 11 then made some of them a little deeper, not all. When you look from above, that gives an interesting variation, and I think it is much better than the original. Again, my opinion.

Can you shape it without breaking it?

Carefully. I moved the flute to about three o'clock and went around, carefully, because the piece had a lot of movement. Looks like I had a broken point somewhere in there. From the beginning it is two layers. That's okay.

Same problem on your piece? Sometimes it is a good idea to grab a much smaller tool at the beginning and gradually increase the size. A smaller tool does not give as much pressure, and it takes a lot less material. Even then, go with the grain and find the best angle of attack.

Also, skip the perfect circle there. It won't look natural.

Why finish the first layer before the second?

Complete the first one, and the second goes on without a fight. When I teach in person, we are limited to five days. I have to push, and sometimes the first layer is not done when we glue the second one on top. At home, I highly recommend finishing the first layer completely. Then apply the second layer, carve it, and blend them together.

Online, though, there is no week limit. Take it as far as you want. Anything you missed, you rewatch, and the camera comes in so close that you see more than I do. This center is only about half an inch across. On the screen it looks huge.

How many petals, and how wide?

About five. I still had some material left there, and that is what I need for the 3D form. One petal goes right underneath, another sits beside it, and those two are a little wider. The other three are smaller.

They don't have to sit on a flat spot. Some can curl up slightly and some can curl down. On one side I had about 1/8 inch (3 mm) of thickness, enough to roll that part down slightly.

Where do the openings go?

Right where the petals run into the center, really close to it. The wood left between two of them is no more than three millimeters, maybe even less, maybe 3/32 of an inch. Those openings are what give the flower its beautiful look.

I start with a one millimeter 11. Two millimeters would work, but one gives me a better chance not to break things. And I'm not just digging with the same stroke. The first one goes in with the flute at twelve o'clock, straight up. For the second the flute rotates to about one o'clock, for the left side, and after that to eleven o'clock for the opposite side.

That makes the hole a little wider without undercutting it, and it removes a lot of material at once. After that a Dockyard of about the same size, a number 8 or 9, goes in as a plug cut. Right through. If you watched the Venetian style carving, you know this cut.

On one side I did not open it through yet. The two shapes next to it still need their own work, and it will be a lot easier to get underneath a little later, once they are done.

The petals get the shape I always like to put on flowers, a wavy one, because I just think it looks nice. It does not have to be perfect, and I said that twice in a row on camera.

Which tool does what on this flower?

Step	Tool	Why
Barrel first	Number 11 at five millimeters, or a 10 or 9	Any first tool will do
Center plug	Dockyard micro tool, a sixteenth inch, tilted slightly outward	Makes the flower look slanted
Center ridges	An 11 at one millimeter, then half a millimeter	Random spacing, some carved deeper
Petal openings	The 1 mm 11, then a small Dockyard plug cut	Less risk of breaking the wood
Petal concaves	Antique Marples number 1, then the 16 V tool	Thin steel puts little stress
Blending the concaves	Ashley Iles number 3, upside down	More slicing than pushing

How do you carve the concave on each petal?

Three concaves, all running to the center, and the one in the middle is the deepest. I start that one with a tiny 11, a single millimeter wide, a preliminary stroke placed right in the center of the petal. It has to be dark, and by dark I mean the shadow.

Closer to the center you have to be more careful, and you keep an eye on the thickness. I had maybe an eighth of an inch (3 mm) left in the middle. So I wanted a little more movement down there first, so the flower looks like it is growing from the center. That took a thin tool, my number 1 by Marples and Sons, an antique with a bevel on both sides. Why that one? I just like antique tools, and it is no better than any other one, only really thin.

I also have to look at that hole, because going all the way through is not going to look nice. I got about two millimeters deep and had only one millimeter left. Then a number 16 V tool at 35 degrees, flute going out, did the same kind of work from the side.

Why not spoon the concave out?

I do not like the spooning effect. Some people, doing something like this, start spooning the wood out with the tool. That is not good. The concave drops straight down from the edge. No spoons. It is not spoon carving.

I also leave space between the concaves, about a sixteenth of an inch, a millimeter and a half, so I do not get a really sharp ridge between them. Why the space? We are going to blend that movement, and I don't want to see really sharp ridges or facets. A back bent makes the blending easier, but a knife works, or a flatter gouge upside down, or just a chisel.

I blended with a number 3, three millimeters or 1/8 of an inch, from the Peter Benson collection by Ashley Iles, upside down and at about 45 degrees, so it slices instead of pushing. A magnifier glass would help. I have one close by. In front of the camera you would not see anything.

The more material you remove, the more fragile a petal becomes. Be careful. I am talking to myself, I guess. Watch how much pressure I create. It just moves, and that is why I grab the small tool.

Why not take the triangle out the usual way?

Too fragile for that. Usually I take that triangle out with a number 11. Here I can create pressure down there. Pretty much any tool works for this part, a skew too, and I used the number 1 again. It is so thin I can dig inside the fibers without creating a lot of stress. I stopped about half a millimeter short of the line.

Where two petals touch, watch that you do not leave a sharp triangle point. A small 9 or 8 takes it out, and I want a really gradual movement there. Maybe drop it slightly lower, maybe not. Even with some material left, I can probably just undercut it. So I undercut it, flute at about four o'clock, ending at about half past five, six o'clock.

Or eighteen, if you like. When I grew up in Russia, people used the 24 hour format all the time, so six in the evening is eighteen. Some people here call it military time, but in Russia it is always like that.

What happens to the rest of the flower?

I showed one petal. The others get the same concaves, off camera, and you can work the rest yourself. Do not worry about perfect detail yet. As long as you get really close, you can clean it up later. Pretty simple, and this flower is going to look really nice.

The two shapes beside it bug me too, and I jump to them right after this flower. Next in the course comes class 16. Before this class came class 14 and its parsley leaves. In class 12 a flower changed too, but there almost no wood was left under its center.

More carved flowers are in the flower rosette course and the Hashemi flowers course. For the thin edges on these tools, the sharpening course is the place, and the tools course untangles the numbers. The tiny tools come out in class 13. The whole Grinling Gibbons course is open with tuition.

Shall we carve?