This carving turned out to be one of my favourite pieces to date: I was asked to reproduce a “Nisse” character from Scandinavian folklore, in particular one from the book “Vaesen” by Johan Egerkrans. I sourced some oak approximately 2′ x 3′ and set about carving the little chap as accurately as I could.
The Nisse, a mythological creature known for frequenting farm buildings, has nowadays become associated with the winter solstice and Yule ~ so it was apt that this was the customer’s Christmas present to themselves.
Once I’d finished carving the character, my plan was to give the impression of a sign fixed to the bottom; I toyed with the idea of using old nails to “fix” the sign, but finally decided on using some oak pegs ~ he is a woodsman after all!
The carved “sign”; the next step was making some plugs…
….and using them to give the illusion of the sign being fixed to the plaque:
