Plans for You
Bob Jubb provides plans for carving a nuthatch
Bob Jubb provides plans for carving a nuthatch
The nuthatch is a lovely British woodland bird, with a happy, bubbly song. It can climb up or down tree trunks with equal ease and has a strong pointed beak for breaking open hazelnuts and acorns. It is often carved in a head down position and sometimes with a nut.
I work at Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex, UK as a volunteer guide and we have a bird feeding station at the Himalayan glade. Nuthatches frequent this area, to the delight of visitors, many of whom have never seen a nuthatch. I have spent many happy hours there photographing them.
This drawing of the nuthatch can be adapted to suit several compositions, with the nuthatch on an old tree stump, or that shown above where oak leaves wrap around a tree stump
Carving tips
I have carved quite a number of nuthatches and have tried to get the grain in the same direction as the beak, so that it will not break off. The eyes have been inlaid with buffalo horn dowels, which have been rounded off and polished with a Micromesh stick containing four grades of very fine grit. In some of the carvings I have used a bradawl to mark the background (called sparrow pecking), in order to make the leaves to appear to stand out.
