My teachers were the photos I found in carousel books along with a few photos of carousel figures in pieces. This is actually the culmination of my learning to carve. How do you get from this sketch to the actual carving of a five foot sculpture? Well, I didn’t begin here. It’s been a while since I carved these figures, so I may inadvertently leave out a step. Next session we talk about the actual carving and the tools required. Be careful not to lay them over knots, but use a smooth, unmarred piece of lumber. This requires generally that they be laid crosswise of a long board. When you lay out your pieces – try to use at least a 12” wide, 1” thick board – be sure to lay them so the leg pieces are on the straight grain of the wood. Basswood was also available and is easy to carve but bland and must be painted when finished. When I discovered poplar I fell in love with the finer grain and beautiful coloration. My favorite wood was poplar, although I first began using pine since I could get It at the lumber yard. Actually, I generally used the whole sketch and just carbon copied the piece I wanted. The pieces are then drawn on another piece of paper, following the lines you’ve sketched.
You can add a tail, as in the photo, or you can leave the rump rounded if you wish to add a soft tail. To get these pieces, you take the original sketch and lightly continue the legs where they differ from, in this case, the left side of the figure. This is to furnish extra width through the neck. This photo shows the pattern first as a full figure, then in three pieces which represent right and left sides and a middle piece that includes the head. This is the finished figure, carved from basswood and standing about 15” high. The pattern for this session was drawn from another picture. You can find pictures to copy from books about antique carousels or pattern books or, you can draw your own. I would like to show you now how to take a sketch and turn it into pattern pieces for a miniature carousel horse. We will talk more about blowing up a sketch for a full-size figure in another session.
The sketch and photo were for a full-size figure, however, the sketch measures only about 7” x 10”, where the photo is of a 5’ figure. I could look up from my carving, using them for reference as I shaped a leg or head.
I enlarged pages from this book and had them tacked on the walls of my studio. Last session we talked about an anatomy book that shows the ‘construction’ of a real horse.
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