Carve an Owl Out of Wood - Easy Wood Carving Project

1. Introduction: In this course, I will teach you how to cover cute little out of wood. I will guide you step-by-step through the process. You will learn how to do basic cuts, how to sketch your out, how to cover it and turn it into a pendant. By the end of this course, you will have a lot of skills that you will be able to apply to any other woodcarving project. It is a great hobby and a way to make your own jewelry or figurines that you can sell or give us gifts to your friends. Join me in this exciting adventure. 2. What you need for the course: First of all, you're going to need the carving knife. I always use flex card detail knife can 13. The length of the blade is 38 millimeters or 1.5 inches. I advise you to use a knife that has a similar blade because it's rather thin and small enough to cover little things, pendens, jewelry, figurines and things like that. Additional information to this course, I will list other options for carving knives. Next, we're going to need a piece of wood. You can use any hardwood for this poplar, Apple beach mahogany. Ok. I suggest using black walnut because it has a nice grain and it is easy to carve. I wouldn't suggest going for something soft like password because it doesn't hold details that well, it definitely doesn't look good as jewelry. But of course, if you didn't have anything else and you just want some practice, you are still welcome to try. You will also need a soul to get a piece of the required size. I find my wood on eBay or Etsy. You can also find it in your local timber store. So meal. You will need just a small piece with dimensions of five centimeters, which is two inches in length, three centimeters in width, which is an inch, and three-sixteenths, and around two centimeters in thickness, which is approximately seven eighths of an inch. Position your project in such a way that the grain would run vertically. Next, you will need something to sharpen your knife with. You can use a sharpening stone or a leather strop with some compound, which is called chromium oxide. It's normally green. Or you can use any other sharpener that you have. This is how I sharpen it using a stroke, I apply some paced than they press the knife firmly to the surface and move it one way a few times, and then the other. Next we will need some sandpaper. Get yourself a selection. Smaller number means rougher sandpaper. You can use it in the beginning. Then for smoother finish, you can use something like 400 or 600 grid. If you want to turn your little owl into jewelry, you will need something called an eyepiece or islet. Ice group. Choose a small one. Mine has an overall length of eight millimeters. Also, you will need a cord of some sort to hang your pendant or you can use a chain. Also, you will need pliers to get your eyelid and place the needle of some sort to make a hole for that islet. It's always a good idea to seal your project with some oil. I'm using row linseed oil gloves for protecting your hands. I'm using a simple nylon gloves. And finally, you will need a pen or a pencil and a ruler. 3. Sketching an owl: So prepare your little piece of wood and grab a pencil, pen and the ruler, we're going to sketch out our owl on the wood so that we know exactly where to carve. We'll start with a central line to keep our carving symmetrical. And then find the middle along the length as well. Now, if you look at an owl, you will see that its head is a bit like an upside down heart. Let's draw this shape on top. I'm going to go over my pencil line with a pen so that it doesn't rub off in the process. The next prominent feature on the face, or these two photos that look like a wide letter V. The ends of the feathers will be in the corners. Now let's draw round eyes in this spot. Here at the bottom of our inverted heart. Let's draw a beak that meets at the middle line. Now the body and wings. And lastly the feet. He used the middle line to keep them symmetrical. 4. How to carve wood: Before we start our owl, let me show you a few ways to cut wood on the spare piece. We're going to use a lot of something called V cuts. You're basically creating this little v's with your knife. Carving at first from one side and then towards it from the other side. Push your blade through the wood that's approximately 45 degrees. Another important cuts is called stub cut, which is done by simply putting a deep cut through the wood. It allows you to carve up to a particular point. For example, here, I want to make sure that nothing happens to this feather. When they cut towards it. My knife will stop at the stock cut and it won't go further. You can deepen your stop cut as you go. A different cut that we're going to use is a pocket. When you carve wood towards you. Note that I position my thumb firmly under the piece of wood. And another cut is a pushcart. Here, I push the blade away from me, which is a good in a safe cut. I don't let the blades move around freely. Notice how I directed with my thumb. Take a spare piece of wood and practice all these cuts first. And remember when carving, stay safe, Don't rush it and use controlled movements. 5. Carve an owl - head: Now we're ready to start. We're going to use a mixture of cuts that I mentioned in a previous video. I start with a weaker that separates the head and the body. Then I make a deeper and deeper until our owl has the back of the head and some shoulders. I draw this line all around the owl and follow it with a knife. I add V cuts as I go slowly and without rushing. Keep your project firmly in one hand and carve with the other while having enough support for your wrist? Here, at first I do is stop cut to make sure that my knife doesn't travel any further and doesn't harm this long feather. After that, I slowly turn it into V cats. As with the previous cut, I make them all the way through the side. It's always a good idea to try and visualize your work in 3D and to imagine what it would look like as a finished product. If you need help, you can look at some reference photos online or at the photos of a finished owl that I attached in the additional information. I'll make a stub cuts on the other side as well and follow the outline closely. At this stage, This is our primary task to remove all the unnecessary wood around the outline of the owl. And I follow the cuts all the way to the side. This is what it looks like at this stage. Here, again, I cut straight into the wood in order to define the feather. Be extra careful here, especially if you have software would don't apply too much pressure on the knife. As wood can chip and break quite easily. Stopped cuts here slowly turned into V cats as well. If you look at an owl, you will see that the feathers are quite slim. So we need to remove all that thickness. I mark it approximately with a pen. The further is about one centimeter thickness, but you can measure it by I. Here, I came across the grain, so the wood is quite crumbly. This could be a tough part. So make sure your knife is really sharp. Keeping your knife sharp is very useful in general as it minimizes the risk of injury. It might sound counter-intuitive, but it's a fact when your knife is sharp, you don't apply an excessive amount of pressure on it. Therefore, if you slip by mistake, your knife is less likely to cause harm. At the same time, Let's remove the sharp edges and make the head more rounded. Don't take off too much at once, as it's very easy to miscalculate your actions and accidentally carve off too much. But don't get upset if it happens. When I just started carving, I spoiled quite a lot of wood. This is normal and it all contributes to learning. Just keep a few spare pieces of wood ready, just in case. Here's how we can make it more rounded. Imagine the middle line on the head and carpet is if it's a ball moving slightly inwards at the bottom. You can see that I'm using a pool cut a lot here. This is probably the most common cuts in carving. Don't be afraid of cutting towards you. Just remember that your movements should be controlled and you should feel where your life is going and where it stops. Let's round the back of the head a bit more here. Now, let's define that further. At first I follow the pen marks with a knife, and then I slowly curve towards it. Given our furthermore thickness. I use just a small part of my knife to have more control. And I do it from the other side as well. Be mindful of the eye, as it said, quite close to the feather. In the same way I define the eye by curving around with a knife. Makes sure your position, your hand and wrist comfortably and you are safe when carving. Start curving slowly into the woods and remove more and more around the eye. You can see that the eyes are set quite deep. So you can give the same depth here. The eye sockets are quite hollow and it's the best way to show what owls are well-known for huge and slightly spooky eyes. It is going to be deeper next to the eye and then it will gradually come closer to the surface by the edge. Sickness to the feather on this side as well. I take some wood off on this side of the head as well. The forehead is going to be slightly behind the feathers. Push the top edge back. All this time. I use top cuts to reinforce the feathers. It is a very important step and you shouldn't skip it because that's the only way to ensure their safety. Keep making the forehead rounded. I curve a bit just behind the feather, making it stand out. In the next lessons we will make it quite thin, but you can start here as well. Rounding the cheeks here. I repeat the same process on the other side. First-day make this lysine motion with a knife and then carve wood around it. Finished the other eye. And we'll continue in the next lesson. 6. Carve an owl - body: Let's finish our face curve under the cheeks or eye sockets. The rest of the body is going to be under them. So you can take off quite a lot of wood. Don't forget the stub cuts that must be familiar to you by now. They will define the cheeks that are above, not only the body, but the big two, but only slightly. At the same time. You can define the beak as well. See how I push the knife with my thumb here. This is a very controlled pushcart that allows you to curve upwards and the waveform you thumb doesn't let your knife go, flying and destroying something or injuring you. I am given the shoulders to our owl by using v cuts here. There is no particular rule of how deep you should come here. Although I noticed that beginners very often make shallow cuts. Don't be afraid to give more definition to the buddy. Head normally sticks out quite far. So you can give your cuts here quite a lot of depth. Get rid of all sharp rectangular edges in front and at the back. After finishing curving around the outline, this is the second most important task your owl can even be without any details. But if it is perfectly rounded and has big eyes, it will definitely have the resemblance. As you can see, I mostly use postcards here. Take care when you drive the blade towards the thumb. You can give your fingers extra security by putting some plasters or safety tape around them. Define the head a bit more. You can make the groove between it and the buddy quite deep. And let's add some more general roundness to every squarish edge. Especially pay attention to the sides and the back. It is easy to overlook them because they don't have corners. Every surface should be slightly convex. Treat this process of roughing out the body as a meditation and a great practice. Your hand gets used to making cuts and feeling the wood while your mind relaxes. Finished the rough, rounding out the buddy and then we'll come back in the next lesson and carve wings and feet. 7. Carve an owl - wings and feet: Now we're going to carve wings. See how the go round the body. Let's draw them with a pen. At the back leg should come together like a tail coat. I'm going to define them with a tip of the knife. Slowly follow the line to the back. The wings are going to be slightly above the buddy, so give them some thickness. The shape of the wings can always be modified later. So in the beginning, you can make them a bit bigger and then see which shape works for you. Here at the back. We will add some furthest later, but it's always easier to start with a general shape first. Make the chest a little bit lower. You can take some of the woods off to make the beak and the wings thicker. Car with the tip of the knife in the corners, constantly reinforcing the outline of the cheeks. Making these edges rounded. Getting rid of rectangular shape is not an easy task. You will see that we will try to achieve a roundness on every stage of carving. After that, once again, I go round the body and remove all the flat or square surfaces. Now let's do the feet. We will be using the same technique, follow the line with a knife, and then curves slightly towards it and give it some thickness. Here as well. You can make feed bigger. Then they will be later. To account for any possible mistakes. You might find that the symmetry is lost. And therefore it would be easy to bring it back by taking some wood from one food or the other. The stomach will be slightly convex as well. It will point inwards at the bottom, going slightly behind the feet. At the same time, it will point inwards on top by the big push gut works really well here. Let's add some cute little feathers to the wings at the back. See for yourself how many are going to fit the five or six. I carefully kept them out. This is when it's really rewarding to carve hardwood as it allows you to do really detailed work. Woods like bus would be less forgiving at this point. I copped out the spaces between the feathers on one side. Then I will do it on the other. 8. Carve an owl - tweaks: Some minor tweaks left. I give the feet more definition. I carve out some good on the side so that they don't merge with the Buddy. More depth to the eye sockets. You can really make it as deep as you want. Give more thickness to the face feathers. Also, I make the ends of the feathers more pointy. Don't forget to be extra careful at this stage. Even the hardest wood can snap if you apply too much pressure to it. Another minor tweak that you can skip if you want. I don't like flat edges and surfaces. So I'm going to soften the outline of the eyes. This is a purely aesthetic choice. Here I make the beak more pronounced. It is situated below the cheeks or eye sockets, but above the chest in a sort of middle ground. Here, I also soften the outline of the feathers. I smooth the rectangular shape. It shouldn't look like a printed letter V, but more like a fluid and gracious bird in the sky. One last thing, I decided to make the belly a bit wider and the wings a bit smaller so that I have more space for nice ornaments and feathers. One of the main things in woodcarving is that you can always remove unwanted would, while it's impossible to add more unless you use glue, which is not ideal. It doesn't mean that you can't use glue. By all means you can use superglue or epoxy glue to save your piece. But as a wood carver, you should strive to have everything contained in one project. So normally, every time I failed at it, I would simply start it again. When you reach the desired shape, our lives almost done. We will have one last thing to do and that is carving feathers on the belly. Let's do that in the next lesson. 9. Carve an owl - feathers and toes: Let's polish our owl with some sandpaper and make it nice and smooth. This way we will prepare the surface for some nice decorative feathers on its belly. We're going to make this kind of feathers that go down in layers. Grab a pencil and let's draw them first. It's going to beat four or five wavy lines. Then I will go over the pencil lines with a pen so that it doesn't rub off easily when carving. You can probably guess at this point that we are going to follow these lines with a knife and then take off some wood under these lines as if the top layer of further slightly covers the next layer at the bottom. Now let's do the feet. It's going to be very easy. Simply put two lines on each of the feet. 10. Carve an owl - finishing: Our owl is ready. Let's cover it with some oil. I'm using linseed oil. It helps to preserve the wood and it makes it more resilient and durable. Also, it changes the color. It makes it darker and highlights natural grain. Wipe it with a cloth to remove the excess of oil. After that, you can leave it as a fingering or turn it into pendent. I'm going to show you the process on a different marker central point on the head, first with a pen, then with a needle. This is where our little ice crew is going to be. Use pliers to help you put the ice grew in place. Then I'm going to take some code and hang my pendant. If you want to learn how to make a sliding not check my PDF with additional information for the link to the video. I will leave this hours figuring though, I quite like the way it turned out. I hope you liked this project and you enjoyed it.