A Carvers Progress by Melanie Windle

Melanie took us through her carving career and the people who had influenced her – providing inspiration, ideas, styles and techniques.

Florence Sutcliffe started her interest in woodcarving by dragged her out of a queue for a night school class in Yoga, into the queue for Vic Bently’s wood carving class.   Vic taught her the basics of carving and suggested as a guide to future work that 2D and 3D work should be alternated so that the carver maintained the different skills.

Melanie’s first two carvings

Florence was an artist who influenced all carvers who met her and any who admired her inventive work.

Later Melanie took up chip carving inspired by George Moore.

Greenman Trivet

This sort of project is quick and easy once you have got your hand / eye coordination sorted, and makes ideal presents.

From John Adamson she took ideas about finding original thoughts, designs and ideas from the shape of the log and the twists of the grain.

The shape of found and drift wood  inspired her collection of spoons.    Perhaps not always the most practical of spoons but they bring back memories of the day the wood was found.

From Nick Panteledes she learnt about precision.

She likes the precision to have a bit of a twist and to include the vagaries of the wood rather than excluding them to show that the material is wood and not plastic.

The key rings are made from a yew tree at Buttermere and been carved to bring out the beauty of the wood.

The  carved ammonite looked fine to me but Melanie pointed out that the top did not match the underside.     It is nice to have some standards by which one judges ones work

The current work, a low relief of some woodworking tools, encompasses the precision, the reference to natural wood, and illustrates the a requirement to make the things that should be under other things look as if they are

current work in progress

You can see more of Melanies work at https://landcwoodcarvers.co.uk/galleries/member-carvings/ and click on her name.