Learning my letters and learning to lathe...
This January, with the help of my DYCP grant from Arts Council England, I spent a week in Manchester for some 1-1 tuition with Jan Zalud. Jan is an amazing woodcarver, automata maker, puppet maker, and general all-rounder when it comes to working with wood (www.janzalud.co.uk). As a digression from my puppetry and jewellery work, I asked Jan to teach me lettering and relief carving techniques. Last summer I attempted my first relief carving, and the process was something of a learning curve! I wanted to revisit the process, but this time with help and advice at hand. So I set myself a rather ambitious project for the week: to carve my ‘Sarah Vigars Art’ logo in lime wood…
We started with traditional letter carving, which is a painstaking process that requires a different chisel for almost every cut. It is not forgiving either; make one mistake and you’ve carved a wobbly serif! A few wobbly serifs and apexes later and I still need more practice, but I’m glad to have started on the journey.
Next we prepped the wood for the logo plaque. After a bit of sawing and planing (which actually took the best part of a day!) we mounted the carving blank into a lathe and turned the edge, a first for me! Then I started the long process of lowering and levelling the background: I wanted to carve the leaf as a raised relief, which meant removing the surrounding wood. This took the best part of a day too, before I could even begin incising the lettering. BUT progress was made and the by the end of the week I was over half way towards my goal. This project will go on the back burner for now while I crack on with a marionette project, but I hope to have it finished in time for my next craft market!
