{"id":2899,"date":"2015-11-23T20:16:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T20:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stichler.co.uk\/?p=2899"},"modified":"2015-11-23T20:16:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T20:16:34","slug":"its-a-boar-at-wilberfoss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/11\/23\/its-a-boar-at-wilberfoss\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Boar at Wilberfoss"},"content":{"rendered":"

This job started with a disappointment ~ after visiting the tree earlier in the year to assess it and get a vague feel for the position of any carvings, I returned just prior to commencing work to find enormous clumps of fungus at the base of the tree and dotted at frightening regularity up and down the trunk.<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \"allen-stichler-wood-carving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I went to my fungus-guru, Pete Bowser, who said it’s a common issue with sycamore and the fungus is a sign of internal decay;\u00a0 apparently though, the outer part of the trunk could remain sound for some time. I passed this on to the client, who after consideration decided on a smaller design than originally discussed ~ which seemed the wise thing to do. After all this I was amazed at the firmness of the wood when I started the carving ~ it was like rock, and my wrists felt like they’d been given a severe pummeling after the first two days.<\/p>\n

The design was a simple image of a wild boar and a scroll with the village name\u00a0 “Wilberfoss” (which has as its origin “Wild Boar Foss”, with many of the animals inhabiting this area near the river Foss at one time).<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-carving\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had to place my ladder in quite a precarious position, spanning a large hedge and reaching pretty high, so the carving could be viewed from the road and a junction directly opposite.<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \"allen-stichler-wood-carving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The bus stop was practically at the foot of the ladder, so I received plenty of puzzled looks as I chipped off the bark, both from those waiting for a bus and those sitting on the top of the regular double deckers.<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-wilberfoss\"<\/a> \u00a0 \"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I always try and get as much done on the first day as possible, but the hardness of the timber and the awkward positions I had to contort to at times made it a slower job than usual. I set in most of the basic shape of the head and had the rest drawn on, but when the street lamps have come on it’s probably time to knock off!<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next stage was shaping the body and legs, and the boar was near to being finished. The mohican-style strip of hair down the spine finished him off, and I was quite pleased with how the animal had fitted on to the trunk. I was a little frustrated that the discolouration of the wood on the face and leg perhaps confused things, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. Hopefully a few coats of Danish Oil will make the different shades less conspicuous.<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting on the scroll next to the boar; if I work from the top down and leave the bottom\u00a0 “open”\u00a0 I won’t have to worry too much about not fitting in the word\u00a0 “Wilberfoss.”<\/p>\n

\"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \"allen-stichler-woodcarving\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This job started with a disappointment ~ after visiting the tree earlier in the year to assess it and get a vague feel for the position of any carvings, I returned just prior to commencing work to find enormous clumps of fungus at the base of the tree and dotted at frightening regularity up and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-carving-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2931,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/2931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stichler.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}