[Woodcarver] Flat Plane Carving

[Ivan Whillock Studio]

I pick on Harley a bit and point out that the terms"flat" and "plane" are
redundant.  A plane is, by definition, flat!  In contrast, then, I jokingly
call my style  "curved arc" carving:)  The redundancy, in fact, emphasizes
that flat tools are generally used to make the cuts--knives, chisels, or
even hatchets--and that the cuts those tools naturally make are left "as
is," and are not rounded over.  Some "flat plane" carvers try  to carve
economically, paring the forms down to the fewest cuts possible.    Others,
however, use multiple small--but still flat--cuts to express the form.  Some
make the surfaces smooth and avoid jagged edges, but others are very loose
and create many splinters and jagged edges--all part of the "hand hewn"
effect.  (There are great carvers who leave very fuzzy, jagged edges, so
"clean cuts" is a "craft" value rather than an artistic one.)

Many carvers who are not necessarily "flat plane" carvers like a tool-cut
surface, keeping the hard edges that the tools naturally leave, but their
carvings have concave and convex facets as well as flat ones, made by a
variety of gouges and chisels.

Some carvers try to stay purely in the "flat plane" camp, but most are a
mixture of the "flat plane" and  the "curved arc" camps and can be placed
somewhere on a continuum between the two.  Thus, even though Emil Janel
leaves hard edges on his carvings, he is not strictly "flat plane" because
he uses gouges to create concave as well as convex surfaces.


Ivan Whillock Studio
122 NE 1st Avenue
Faribault, MN 55021
Visit my website at
 http://www.whillock.com
Visit my Picturetrail album at
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=ivancarve