Learning to Carve

Woodcarving reader, TimMcGinn shares his experiences and inspirations

My introduction to woodcarving was an exhibition of a local woodcarving group’s works in the window of an antique shop in Odiham, North Hampshire. The group was led by Brian Leemans who invited me to come along to one of their weekly sessions in a local village hall. Brian, a former Head Forester at the Forestry Commission, had spent his lifetime in wood and woodcarving. He had been running the group for several years and they were all convivial company working on advanced pieces when I joined with two other novices.

Brian’s skill and experience were soon very evident as we tackled our first woodcarving project – two dolphins using Flexcut knives and mahogany block shapes he had pre-cut. This was an excellent introduction to carving prudently and understanding the importance of the grain. The finished dolphins were then mounted on a pine base carved to represent a seascape.

This early experience gave me the impetus to improve my basic woodcarving skills so my next project was much more ambitious. My great-grandparents kept a pony and trap in a stable with two Victorian cast footman characters on the hips of the roof; always called Paddy and Barney. They had been passed down the family to me and remain favourite garden ornaments about 80cm tall.

In discussion with Brian he recommended I try Cedar of Lebanon to produce two similar characters about 25cm tall. Photographing the originals from the front, back and sides created images which I then overlaid with a squared grid. Replicating a similar grid on the wood blanks, I then sketched in the shape of the characters on each side and the top. This gave me the outline profile to remove the surplus bulk and create figures closer to the target images. Removing excess timber with just a knife was difficult and rather tedious so acquired my first woodcarving chisels and with a mallet carefully revealed the desired shapes. 

The biggest challenge was their round hats which I turned and added to their bases. My father, John McGinn, was a leading Liverpool banker and talented amateur artist who created a terracotta head of me when I was twelve years old. After reading Dick Onians’ book, I was keen to understand how to carve the human head and used this as a basis to carve my own head in lime.

Early carvings

My first relief carving was a sailing ship in full mast using a profile shared by a carving classmate. understanding depth and the power of light and hade made this an enjoyable and fulfilling work in Lime. Relief carving is much different and also tricky to manage distance and perspective. My next project was to carve a relief of Seasons, our home built in an ancient Hundred Acre Oak woodland, planted and grown for the Royal Navy, in the North Downs. Cath, my wife acquired a set of miniature bronze statues of the four seasons from Spain featuring ladies dressed to reflect the different weather conditions. This was an awkward challenge to scale up and carve the figures triple the size of the originals. Again I carved this in lime as I was becoming more familiar with its qualities and we have an excellent local source at WL West & Sons near Midhurst.

Watching Nigella Lawson on a television cooking programme Cath spotted a rather handsome and chunky pig in her kitchen. This was a large item to carve being 60cm long and 25cm wide using quarter sawn lime. My family have been very supportive of my woodcarving activities and I have been privileged to be asked to carve house-signs for them. The clear definition of Trajan Roman typeface, which after all has survived countless centuries, is my favourite and using the carving chisels designed specifically by Chris Pye is a terrific aid to accuracy and clarity. My youngest brother, Ambrose, has a delightful home in an old pub in Buckinghamshire. The existing sign was in bad shape and he asked me to carve a replacement which has stood the test of time well.

Symbolic Carvings

Sir Winston Churchill is one of my favourite heroes and I was struck by the defiant stance of his statue in Parliament Square, Westminster London which I chose to carve in Jelutong. Like Balsa it is technically a hardwood with many properties similar to that wood such as the low density, straight grain and fine texture. These make it is easier to work with than English hardwoods and hence popular with model makers and within the pattern making trade.

Sir Winston’s great wartime friendship with the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is celebrated in a wonderful life-size bronze statue by Lawrence Holofcener. This statue is an important symbol of our deep friendship with friends in the United States. It is in Bond Street in London’s West End where many visitors sit between them for an iconic selfie! Jelutong was my choice for this too so I could replicate the intricate details of the bench and finish it with a bronze patina.

A great friend of mine and fellow Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE MA CStJ FRSA FBCS Hon CDir FIoD, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London in 2015. To celebrate I offered to carve his Coat of Arms. It was an extremely challenging piece to carve from the artistic detail and the motto ‘do well, do good’ was a guiding maxim for my woodcarving!

A mature ash tree in our garden was leaning into the highway at a dangerous angle and needed to be felled leaving a stump about two metres tall. Why so tall? Because I wanted to utilise the stump to carve four symbols to represent the four seasons as our home is called Seasons. The symbols chosen were Sun for Summer, Oak Leaves and Acorns for Autumn, Snowflake for Winter and a Daffodil for Spring; all reflecting attributes of our garden. With the stump freshly felled a few weeks ago this was going to be green woodworking with a vengeance!

First step was to mark up the stump with four circles to bear the symbols. I then removed the two layers of bark -the first layer is dead bark and the second layer is more like a hard but moist cheese! This exposed the actual ash timber which glistened in the sunshine from its moisture content which we measured to be 56%; normal woodworking timber is a quarter of this level of moisture. As I carved the timber it began to dry out at the surface eventually reaching a much lower moisture content level of 25%. Whilst circular in shape the symbols needed to be in relief and convex to stand out from the trunk which all meant there needed to be a concave outside element to achieve the relief. To finish off the exposed carving I treated the wood with coats of Osmo wax/oil and a matt exterior varnish to protect the images from the weather.

All this experience has made me more ambitious in my scope and as an example my current work in progress; a relief façade of the ancient Winchester Cathedral. This has been a real test as the final execution of the Victorian update to the frontage varies significantly from the architect’s plans. Since it took them centuries to complete, time is on my side!

All this experience has made me more ambitious in my scope and as an example my current work in progress; a relief façade of the ancient Winchester Cathedral. This has been a real test as the final execution of the Victorian update to the frontage varies significantly from the architect’s plans. Since it took them centuries to complete, time is on my side!

Recent developments

Sadly our local classes ceased in 2018 and most of my work is now in my home workshop; an adapted double garage. I have built a comfortable and practical environment for my woodworking re-using old kitchen cabinets and some bespoke shelving with magnetic strips.

Key resources include my Shopsmith – an amazing lathe-based multi-tool that uses a single digital motor to perform lathe, tablesaw, sanding, morticing, drill press include horizontal boring and disc sander.

My carving bench includes two invaluable vices: Scopas Chops, which is the perfect wood carver’s vice made in beech with a heavy duty screw, metal side plates and brass rails with the jaws lined with cork and buff hide; and a Chinese pattern-maker’s vice with swivelling jaws which can be used to clamp and hold any irregular shaped object for carving.Five years ago I joined the Southern Fellowship of Woodworkers which celebrated its Silver Anniversary in 2019. This has given me excellent exposure to other amateur and professional woodworkers and woodcarvers. At the same time it has given me the opportunity to share my business experience and help striving wood professionals to become more effective and profitable business people as well as accomplished craftsmen.

Other good friends, Clare and Jim Madden asked me to carve a plaque for the porch to their Arts and Crafts home in East Devon. Fáilte is Welcome in Gaelic reflecting Jim’s Irish heritage. PAX ET BONUM is the Motto of St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Orders which include the Poor Clare Sisters. It’s meaning is ‘peace and goodness be with you’.

Further reading