Developing Their Skills

At the Creede Woodcarvers Rendezvous, John took classes in relief carving and chip carving. There were lots of other opportunities to develop carving (and painting) skills, as well. Most classes had samples of the project people were learning. The variety was amazing. You can click on any picture to enlarge it.

Some people were decorating walking sticks.






























And then there was bark carving. That work really produces lots of wood chips.






























How about carving in stone?

There were lots of different santas to carve and paint.















































Have you ever wanted to make and decorate a kaleidoscope?




Or carve a fish?






























Gourds make good canvas for painters.








































This is called carving in the round. The support you see supports figures that are too large to comfortably hold in your hand while carving. And the wood can be rotated at will.






















For this class, animal figures were roughed out by the instructor. The class members could choose what they want, complete the detail carving and then paint it.











































If you want to learn how to carve or develop your skills in a new way, Creede, Colorado, in July is really the place to come.

Why We're Here

We came to Creede to take part in the Woodcarvers Rendezvous. John is a carver and he enrolled in two classes. I am not a carver, but I did enroll in a wood burning class. Before the classes began on Saturday, we helped set up the vendor area and some of the classroom areas. The gathering is held in the Creede Fire Department which is located in old mine tunnels in the mountain at the north end of town.

This is the vendor area.

These are some of the classroom areas.

The tables were brought in on this pickup truck. Since this is the area where they keep the fire trucks, there was plenty of room.

My wood burning class met on Sunday in the Fire Department Annex, a metal building across the road from the fire department. It was pretty cold in there until it warmed up later in the day.

I am not good at drawing and I don't intend to do a lot of wood burning, but I think it might come in handy at times to add some decoration to the bowls I turn.

John attended a relief carving class on Saturday morning and Wednesday and today. The boards that carvers use in class are designed by the instructor, John Engler. There were samples to show what was possible. They are absolutely beautiful.

Here is John, working on his carving.

He also took a chip carving class, a type of carving he had not tried before. It met on Sunday in the same building where I was learning pyrography.

You can get a little better idea of what chip carving looks like from this photo of the work being done by one of the women in the class.