My latest Effort

I have all good intentions of going back and showing off some of the stuff that I have done over the years but for right now I guess I'll just show off my latest piece. But before I show it, I have to give you a little background... Information point #1 - For the past several years I have been carving my contribution to the annual Christmas Grab bag at work. We have it set up so that everyone places their gift on a table, and in turn, selects another gift. However, if you happen to like the gift that someone before you got, you can swap your (as yet) unopened gift for what that person has. Last year my gift was "owned" by 12 people before the final person got to take it home. This year it made it through 6 people before that last person finally snatched it. Information point #2 - The company I work for makes electronic equipment for the railroad industry. One piece that we make (based on a design from the 30s -- sometimes the railroad business is slow to evolve) is enclosed a nondescript lump of aluminum bronze (for protection from stuff hanging off a passing train that might hit it) that sits along the tracks and is called a "pig". Information point #3 - I try to incorporate one of our pieces of equipment into the carving somehow. I was running out of ideas (our equipment is not very "photogenic") but I finally decided to do something with a "pig" in it. OK, so what to do with a pig? Well, have somebody sit on it. I then remembered this Norman Rockwell painting of a Hobo and his dog (It was a Saturday Evening Post Cover way back in 1924) -- and a carving was born. So here it is. I'm getting a little fancier with my photography. I realized that I could make it a video and that would give you a view from all sides. It sure beats having to up load a whole stack of pictures. So without further adieu, here it is: I hope you like it. Keep makin' chips!

OK, let's see how this thing works...

I'm going to try adding a few items just to see how to make the blog works. Every time I get involved in something new like this "they" always change how it is done. Not to make it better,usually, just different. So, here goes... I have been carving now since the early part of 2003 when I went to a meeting of the Chisels and Chips Carving Club in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh. I immediately became addicted to carving have have been cranking out pieces at the rate of about 1 a week ever since. Here's a picture of my first piece of an Otter called "Opus 1". Pretty simple, but I really enjoyed carving it.

Over the course of the past almost 6 years I have progressed and have done some relief carving, carved a slew of love spoons, Christmas decorations, some religious carving and a quite a number of caricatures. The latest of which is one that I have entitled "That Eureka Moment". I believe that we have all had at least one. You know where you have just discovered gold or something wonderful like that when suddenly things start to go downhill, FAST! Take a look.

As time progresses and learn more about how to manipulate photos and so on I'll clean up my act and make this blog work coming back to. In the meantime, if you have any comments to make, please do so. I want to make this a popular place for woodcarvers to hang out. Till then, keep makin' chips,

Carvin' Tom

Just getting started...

I'm kinda new to the blog world, so it'll take me some time to get this thing up and running. However, I hope to soon have pictures of all of my carvings posted soon. So, come back again and check it out.