First Carving Attempt

[Sn0W]

I, like most beginners, have a load of old privets that I've dragged home from various places around the city that I happen to come across being pulled out in my day to day. I have one that didn't have a lot of root but I potted it anyways and unsurprisingly it pretty much died all over except for a couple of shoots low down on one side. I decided that as I was going to throw it in the burn pile anyways that I'd get some carving practice first as I have quite a lot of carving projects lined up over the next couple of years!

Forgot to take a before pic but I started out by removing all of the rotten wood and then tried to work with what was left. I soon realised that carving with anything battery powered is going to be hard work and after depleting 3 full batteries I'd had enough. So if I were to continue I would smooth out the tool marks on the edges and then carve in some detail lines to give it more of a woody effect.

Here is where I ended up:








If anyone has any tips or criticisms I'm all ears!

 

[RoadManDenDron]

I like it!
Have you/ are you planning on preserving the wood with anything?

I have a privet with dead wood that came ready done from the nursery and you have made a similar shape out of the trunk. with age it develops nice darkening to it all the way to black in patches so I don't want to use lime sulphur but I also know the deadwood is the main feature of my tree so if I let it rot entirely I have a leggy Bush!

Interested to either hear what you're using or keeping up with the thread to see how it reacts from fresh carving either way so thanks for sharing

I think it looks great but if you were to do another I would leave more bark (I have seen you left a bit) but the bark on the 1 i have has aged and died and fell off at different rates and even the real crusty string like strands are pretty stuck on and the texture gives a good appearance of age IMO as well as giving you a reference point for tying in the details later still you have made an interesting shape with plenty of features without the bark just an idea if you were looking to experiment as you mentioned having more!

 

[Sn0W]

I didn't keep this one I'm afraid. I had a foster dog that seemed intent on chewing my trees so this was given as a sacrifice for the greater good. I didn't preserve the wood with anything, though I have looked into using industrial strength superglue as it was highly recommended on a facebook bonsai group for privet preservation and after some research I found out that it is what Harry Harrington of Bonsai4me uses on his trees. Carving project number 2 will take place at some point in the next month on another privet so keep an eye out!