Giant Woodspirit (More Pictures)

I just recieved these pictures today from the local newspaper that did an article on my giant woodspirit. I know some of you have seen it before but these pictures show me carving it and you can get a better perspective of the size of the carving. Took me about a week to do in all. I had to rent scaffold to do it. I will be doing two more in even larger tree's if it ever stops snowing up here in Canada as we speak we are in the middle of another snow storm. At this rate I wont need scaffold I can just stand on the snow banks to carve. Any how I hope you like the pictures they are on Picture Trail web site. I am currently working on a huge cedar carving as soon as it is finished I will post a picture.
Colin
http://www.geocities.com/partridge_ch

[masker001]

Colin,Knock it off,I am feeling so jealous after looking at your work,its great.Just kidding,you do fantastic work and I love looking at it.Perhaps someday I,ll be just about as good as you{and they say Canadians can,t carve}{Who said that????}Keep it up and keep showing us,love it.
Mark

[Teri_Embrey]

Too cool, Colin. C'mon down to my house - I've got a great maple tree out front just itching to let it's spirit out :-)

Teri

[fred]

I Gotta 100 foot Poplar Tree in my front yard that you can have too !! *Great Carvings!!!

snow? whats snow? *we got flowers blooming here in Ga. !!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *ol' fred

Incredible Colin !! Hard to believe. Maybe 9-10 years ago I did a 24' Uncle Sam and my arms STILL hurt *wink*

[Callynne]

* *Colin, he's fantastic, do you ever carve anything small?? *Ol Fred, we're going to have a high of twenty here today, don't rub it in!!! *Callynne

Thanks for the nice comments I really appreciate them. Yes Callynne I do do smaller carvings I first started doing driftwood santa's and then on to the woodspirits and tree spirits. I now do a lot of bark carvings not in cottonwood as it doesnt grow here(Too Cold :-/.It will eventually get warmer here mabe about mid June). Most of them are done in Black Locust or Black Poplar and some in Willow bark but it has to be an old tree to get bark that thick.
Again thanks to you all for favorable comments I really enjoy being part of this message board.
Colin

Nice work Colin,

Maybe someday when I grow up I can try carving 'big sticks' too.

How do you rough in your work? I notice you are using a mallet and chisel/gouge in the picture.

Good whittlin, Cliff
Charles City, Iowa
http://cliffordparker.tripod.com

Clifford,
Thanks for the nice comments . I rough out the out line of the carving with a chainsaw. I find it works really good if I make all my stop cuts with the saw. I have just purchased a small Husky with a 12 inch carving bar and find that is much safer to use when you that high up. I guess the first 10 minutes of the carving are done with the chain saw the rest is all done with mallet and chisel/gouges. I would say that 98% of the carving is done with the malllet and chisel. I have tried chainsaw carving but although I find the people that do it are extreamly talented I just cant seem to achieve the character I want unless I get in with the chisels. I some times use museum eyes in my carvings but not very often the ones in the pictures have chiseled out eyes. It is too cold here right now to carve outside but as soon as spring arrives I have another 5 large carvings to do I will post pictures when I complete them.
Colin