Carved Acanthusswirl Appliqué

Steve Bisco carves and guilds a classical acanthus swirl in sapele mahogany

A real acanthus plant
Table of Contents

The classical acanthus swirl is one of the mainstays of decorative carving. It forms the swirling foliage of just about every type of classical decoration, including ancient Greek and Roman, 17th-century Baroque, 18th-century Rococo and 19th-century Neo-Classical. It appears in crestings, furniture, picture frames, mirror frames, chimney pieces, friezes, staircases, capitals, corbels and just about anything that can be carved in wood and stone. Sometimes the leaves are densely entwined together, and in other examples they are thinly strung out along slender vines. They generally bear only a slight resemblance to a real acanthus – a plant with indented green leaves and unfurling fronds that grows as a weed in the Mediterranean, and also quite well in my East Anglian garden.

It takes practice to master the subtleties that put the life into an acanthus carving. Tiny little touches at the leaf ends, such as the little half-moon incisions and the downward twist of the gouge at a leaf tip, can make a big difference to the appearance. Also the shallow concave surfaces of the broader leaves, the deeper channels of the narrower stems, and the half-unfurled fronds that roll over on themselves. You must capture the fluidity of the swirl, twisting and turning upwards, downwards and sideways, continually on the move like a living organism.

All the 88-92 Carved acanthus swirl curves must be smooth – an awkward angle or a straight line will spoil the carving. And you must accentuate the curves with grooves and vein lines that flow all the way along a leaf or stem, never losing that continuous smooth line.

This project gives us an exercise with which to practise acanthus carving, and also an attractive ornament at the end of it. I have made it in sapele – one of the mahogany substitutes that is much easier to obtain than the real thing. I’ve finished it with French polish and given it ‘highlights’ of real 233⁄4-carat gold leaf (known as parcel gilding), which on this scale is much easier than it sounds. If you just want some acanthus practice without a fancy finish and the challenge of a hardwood such as sapele, you can, of course, just carve it in lime with any finish (or none) to suit your taste.

Carving with sapele mahogany

Mahogany hardwoods are much favoured for their rich-red lustrous surfaces, but the genuine mahogany traditionally used for carving and cabinetmaking, Swietenia macrophylla, can be difficult to obtain today. Substitutes like sapele are the next best thing and are quite easy to obtain from hardwood suppliers and many general timber merchants. Sapele gives a highly decorative finish, but it can be hard work to carve. It is quite hard and brittle with an unpredictable grain, so care is needed to prevent splinters breaking off. In awkward sections it is often safest to carve across the grain or by using skew gouges. Sapele has a moderate blunting effect on tools, so frequent honing is needed. All mahoganies produce a beautifully rich period effect when finished with French polish and decorated with gilding.

You will need

Gouges:

  • No.3, 10mm
  • No.3 fishtail, 18mm, 10mm
  • No.4 fishtail, 6mm
  • No.5, 7mm, 13mm curved
  • No.6, 25mm
  • No.7, 10mm
  • No.8, 8mm, 8mm curved
  • No.9, 20mm, 3mm, 16mm curved
  • Short bent, 10mm
  • Skewed spoon, 10mm L&R
  • V-tool, 6mm straight, 2mm straight, 4mm curved

Chisels:

  • Flat, 20mm, 6.5mm
  • Hooked skew chisel, 16mm

Other tools:

  • Bandsaw
  • Rifflers

Materials:

  • Sapele: 250 x 90 x 65mm
  • French polish, smooth soft brush
  • Gilding size, 233⁄4-carat gold leaf
  • Gilder’s tip brush, soft brush, artist’s brush

Preparations

1. Take a piece of 250 x 90 x 65mm sapele, and make a full-size copy of the drawing to fit it. Trace the top pattern on to the wood using carbon paper. Also trace the pattern on to transparency film so you can redraw it on the wood as you carve it away
2. Cut the pattern out of the block, preferably with a bandsaw or scrollsaw if you have one, or otherwise with a long-bladed jigsaw, a coping saw or whatever saw you have
3. Fix the carving to a backing board and on to the bench. The best type of bench is one you can walk around to get the best cutting angle, but if you can’t do that clamp the piece with quick-release clamps so you can easily move it to get the best angle

Roughing out

4. Rough out the volute at the left end to get the main features in roughly the right position. Sapele is not a very forgiving wood and breakouts can be difficult to put right, so work down gradually and carefully with small slicing cuts to get the measure of the wood as you go
5. Move to the other end to rough out the frond. Make a couple of saw cuts to the required depth and chisel out a ‘trench’ between the frond and the main leaf. Round over the end of the frond, sweeping upwards and towards the back. Undercut a little to rough out the shape, but leave the main undercutting for the detail carving
6. Now rough out the shape of the main leaf. It slopes down towards the base at the sides and flicks up at the end nearest the frond. The opposite side is rounded over into the flow of the volute. Use the transparency to redraw the flow of the swirl (a white crayon shows up best) to finish shaping the leaf
7. The rounded sides of the carving need to be followed round into the underside. It is best to do this before the detail carving so you can more easily carve in the flowing curves, and while you can still clamp it in a bench vice without damaging the detail. It is hard work doing this in sapele, so make sure the carving is clamped in tight. The underside and back of the frond need a lot of shaping

Carving the detail

8. We start the detail carving on the main leaf. Mark in the main flow lines with a V-tool, using the transparency as a guide, then cut round the individual leaf ends to their required shape
9. Separate and shape the individual segments of the main leaf. Make them broader and shallower at the ends, with a mixture of concave and convex profiles. Where they coalesce towards the
10. At the ends of the main leaf, carve the details that put life into the acanthus. Cut some ‘eyes’ in the leaf lobes by ‘drilling’ in vertically with a No.9, 3mm gouge or No.8, 8mm. Use the same gouges to scoop out grooves running outwards and downwards at the leaf ends, and also some little half-moon cuts to give the ends a slightly ragged look. Add extra veins at the ends with a fine V-tool
11. Carve the veins of the main leaf round to the left-hand end, swirling around the outside of the volute. Make some of the leaf stems convex, some concave and some flat. As the area gets smaller around the end, merge two or three leaf stems together, adding some eyes at the point where they merge
12. Now carve the detail of the volute. The outer part merges into the first acanthus leaf, with a vein separating the part that joins the face of the leaf from the part that joins the edge of the leaf. Both of these are slightly concave. The central part of the volute ‘spins’ outwards and underneath the first leaf – these parts need a smooth finish for gilding
13. Moving to the frond, cut around the leaf ends and mark the flow lines on the outside. Hollow out the inside curve of the frond, carefully undercutting beneath the leaf tips, to form two smooth concaves with a vein down the middle and thinner veins on each side
14. Carve the outside curve of the frond, using three widths of gouges and a fine V-tool to create coves and veins that sweep up from underneath and curl over to the leaf tips. Shape the leaf tips with downward turns of the gouge and the little half-moon cuts discussed in step 10
15. Carve the leaf that emerges from under the main leaf beside the frond. Also undercut the ends of the main leaf where they extend over the frond
16. Remove the carving from the backing board and undercut the underside of all the leaf edges so they look suitably thin from the front. You can clamp the carving in a bench vice with plenty of padding, or you can make a wooden cradle’ on the bench to hold it still upside down
17. Use fine abrasives, and fine rifflers if you have them, to create a finish that will look smooth and even without losing the detail. French polish, and especially gilding, will show up any irregularities, so make sure the surfaces to be gilded are very smooth

Finishing

18. To apply a French polish finish, brush it on very thinly with a fine, soft brush. Work it into the crevices but avoid letting it run or build up thick patches. Let it dry and harden before you buff it up to a soft sheen with a dry cloth
19. Get a book of real gold leaf, some gilding size and a thin artist’s brush, a gilder’s tip for picking up the leaf and a soft brush for pressing it down. A proper gilder would use a special gilder’s knife and pad to cut up the gold leaf, but unless you plan to do a lot of gilding it is cheaper just to manage with an ordinary knife
20. ‘Paint’ a thin coat of size on the areas to be gilded, a few sections at a time. The gold will stick exactly where you put the size, so accuracy is important. The size takes about 5–10 minutes to become touch dry
21. Carefully fold back the cover paper on a sheet of gold leaf and gently score across it with a knife at the edge of your fold. Cut it into sections slightly larger than the patch you are going to gild. Pick it up carefully with a gilder’s tip, which you rub into your hair first to build up static
22. Lower the gold into position with the gilder’s tip and press it down gently with a soft brush. Brush away loose leaf from the edges (it will only stick to size) and go over bare patches with small pieces of leaf. For this I used three leaves of 23¾ carat gold, including the inevitable wastage
23. The carving, with its French-polished sapele and pure gold highlights is now finished. The 23¾ carat gold will never tarnish and will retain its brightness for many years

Further reading

Wild Rose Appliqué

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