Scandinavian Style Carving by Nick Pantelides
Nick gave us another excellent talk and showed some of his own work and some by the masters of the craft. He explained that what had originally been a folk art had now become highly priced due to the strength of interest from Americans who trace their ancestry back Scandinavia. Some of the famous carvers work can command over £1000!!
The folk art tradition continues and there is an excellent book on the subject in the club library – Woodcarving in the Scandinavian Style by H. Reesal Catalogue no 2.7.
One of the characteristics of the Scandinavian carving style is that all the work is done with a knife. This restricts the size to between 4 and 19 inches. Knives have to be sharp and Nick demonstrated how to sharpen a knife. This included the new discovery of the use of Turps subs instead of oil one oil stones. The Turps subs both lubricates and cleanses the stone when the stone is wiped after the sharpening.
Various shapes of knife were shown
The figures are usually painted. To get authentic looking work, Nick uses diluted Acrylic which he tests on news paper. If you can read the print, the thinness of the paint is about right. Tourist quality carvings tend have full strength paint applied