This was a pleasant job ~ lovely weather, a quiet setting and nice timber to work with; I thoroughly enjoyed the scenic route to Scopwick , south of Lincoln, through the beautiful villages of the Lincolnshire Wolds.
The first thing, as always, was to strip the bark; this Robinia stump was around 7 or 8 feet tall, and the plan was to have a large Green Man looking over an area where the family usually sit.
With the nose being the most prominent part of the face, the first day was quite labour intensive, with a lot of heavy removal of wood to make the nose stand out.
Once the features were established it was just a case of positioning the leaves so that they crept up the tree; there was some ivy growing on the wall behind the trunk, so I thought it would be nice to have some ivy on the Green Man. I try to use the leaves of the tree species in question when I’m carving Green Men, but Robinia leaves don’t really lend themselves to this type of design, being pinnate with 10 or more “leaflets.”
Once the leaves were set in place, it was time to give them some life by shaping the undulations and veins.
