This is the wood carving I will be teaching at the Minnesota Metro Wood Carving Weekend on November 19/20 2011 in Fridley, Minnesota.

For more information, go to: www.russscott.com/MetroWCWE/

Lynne’s carvings

Here is a way for me to showcase Lynne's carving skills and ability to create great carvings. Most of these critters have found a home with Lynne's family while visiting them on Easter. Now she is on to Uncle Sam figures and so far they look darn good - more on that later.

Happy Easter

Annual Rochester woodcarvers show

Annual Rochester woodcarvers show My Santa on Bark was the last carving shown on this clip. It was a great show.

Christmas is upon us

Christmas is around the corner, and Santa Claus is everywhere. I have fun demonstrating my skills at wood carving at Hanson Tree Farm in Anoka, Minnesota where people come in the warming house after chopping down their Christmas tree and watch me carve. The farm has a ‘Norman Rockwell’ ambiance about it. The warming house is a building that the owners use to store their heavy equipment. It has been turned into a little boutique of Christmas art shop. Christmas music is playing while customers can have hot chocolate, hot tea and Christmas sausage while I discuss the fun of carving Santa figures and ornaments I find it satisfying to see people looking and my carvings and say how they help make their Christmas tree experience brighter.

Mr. Scary

Holy smokes I can’t believe that it has been almost two months since my last entry onto my blog. It’s time that I took a more dedicated interest in continuing my blog. I plan to have more pictures and how to pics and videos out in the near future, but this being the holiday arts and crafts season, it will be a bit difficult but I will try to keep up.

This carving that I have done is made solely out of scrap pieces that I have found in my scrap box. After I carved each pieces I glued them together with toothpicks as pins as extra strength. But using toothpicks or small dowels as pins would strengthen the joints. I have found that without placing pins in the joint pieces break off easily.

This guy is another ideal of mine. He is ready for Halloween.

It is fine to learn to carve like other carvers and using their patters to create a great carving, but in time, change to your style with that pattern to create your own work of art. This simple Old World Santa carving started from a video I have used over ten years ago. I first copied the pattern, style and form that the instructor had taught. The results were great and I began to use that pattern to create more Old World Santas much like that. As I got bored using the same style over and over again I decided to change a little here and a little there. I have also made discoveries as how to make the carving simpler, making a few short cuts and still end up with a good looking carving. I’ve changed the paint color and paint pattern to create an ever more interesting design. In time, the carving will take shape and becomes your own.

Some time ago I bumped into an old copy of Chip Chats and seen the advertisement of his video. It was from the old video I stated to make my Old World Santas from The ad showed a picture of the creator and many of the Old World Santas creations shown on the video. I was shocked to find that if you were to compare my carvings to his you would not be able to make the connection between his and mine. I was amazed at how much of a transformation that took place through out the years had now made my Old World Santas truly my own. Keep changing, creating and reforming until you have your own true design and masterpiece.

7/27/10
This past weekend we had a tent and table at an art fair in Owatonna, Minnesota’s. Many people stopped at our tent. Hopefully most were interested in what we had on display. The thing that interested me was how fascinated children were by watching us demonstrate woodcarving. The children were so engrossed by what we were doing that it was difficult for their parents to drag them away. One little boy and his sister were so interested to see what I had in my ‘to do’ bag (cut outs and other wood pieces to work on) that I had to take out every piece for them to inspect and decide what it would be when it was done. They kept score, unfortunately for the boy, his sister won. Another little girl wanted us to make her a carved doll for Christmas. She spouted out details on how the doll would look, “I want her to have a poofy pink dress, I want her to have brown hair and brown eyes like mine, I want her to have a smiley face” and so on. I said ‘do you want her face to be like this?’ and I turned my Jack o' lantern over, “here’s a smiling face.” Her reply was a definite no. Another teenaged boy came back three times to ask questions about our carvings and if we gave lessons.It is exciting to see the interest that children have in the art and also in the process of creating a carving. I wish I would have had the opportunity to start carving at that age. I hope that they will keep their interest so that when they become adults they will take up the art. Unfortunately, in our area, there are very few people who will teach carving to children, mainly because of the danger factor and probably the need for lots of patience.

I suspect one of the reasons that children are interested in woodcarving is because it is a touchable art as compared to paintings, photographs, or drawings. Children wanted to touch our carvings. They were very attracted to them. I think we need to come up with some simple carvings - like the 5 minute owls - so we can give them a sample when they stop by the next time we are at a show.