Carving Dragon Studio

The journey of each sculpture starts in the Uinta branch of the Rocky Mountains, where aspens are considered a weed. Although aspen carves well, it is overlooked because of how many knots it has. The space of clean knot free wood is determined by how much the tree grew in a year. The size of the carving is determined by the length of knot free wood.

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I use already dead wood, because it saves me time seasoning and I can find wood with the colorful grain. If seasoned correctly aspen is white, with hard to see grain, similar to basswood. But some of the wood has colorful grain, these are the ones I harvest and carve.

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I harvest the wood mid to late summer, then let the wood dry out for a couple of months. This lets me know where the cracks are. Around November I begin carving and turning the wood.

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I take my gouge and mallet and carefully remove the wood, where each stroke is a conversation guided by the wood. With the rough shape done with the gouges, I then do a final shaping with a series of rasps and sandpaper.

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Once the carving and sanding are complete, the wood is made whole with Tung oil. This seeps deep into the core of the wood, giving it strength, and highlighting the natural colors. The result is a piece that is unique, that will not fade with time, and contains all the marks of the journey it went through.