Reestablishing Patern Lines

I've been carving incised and low relief plaques for several months and now want to try to carve a high relief plaque of a flower. The pattern for the just opening rose like flower has many fine unopened petal details. If I round out the flower, I will carve away all of the pattern lines. The pattern is designed to be traced on a flat surface and will no longer be applicable to the rounded surface, so I won't be able to retrace the lines on the rounded surface. I don't have any artistic ability at all (I can't even draw a straighjt line with a rule ). Do I have to be an artist and redraw freehand the pattern lines or is there some other trick (other than buying a fancy doodad machine) to reestablish the pattern lines on the rounded surfaces?

[FatEddy]

Don't know about tricks or anything, but I'll bet you can redraw those lines a lot better than you think you can. Give it a try on some scrap. I'm far from being an artist either, but there's a lot of difference between pattern lines and art. Go for it, you can do it. Honest.

Number or color code the different levels of the carving and work from the lowest
level completing each level if possible before starting on the next one. I use this
method and it works for me (I'm not an artist either). Depending on the pattern
you will not cut away very much if any needed lines.

Viejo

[John_T.]

Fat Eddy is correct. You will do alot better than you think. And over time it will become second nature. And you will become an artist.

I would have to agree with everyone, after you begin carving the shapes start to show so it becomes easier to know where the lines should be. And if you carve the depths before shaping you just about don't need the lines anymore. One thing I do is to 'trace' the lines with a v-tool very shallow and reestablish them as little bits get shaved off. It works as long as you don't cut to deep that you can't shave them off when the time comes for them to be gone.

Dave

[mdallensr]

Keep in mind the need for a pattern. If you're doing decorative relief such as acanthus, the pattern need not be followed exactly. When you redraw the lines, it may not matter at all that your new lines are a little different than the pattern. There's more than one rose, one scroll, involute, etc. You might do better than the pattern. Sketch it in and if it doesn't look right, keep changing it until it does.

[FatEddy]

Nobody will know what it was supposed to look likie anyway xxx mother nature never makes two the same so why should you? Besides, yours will probably be an improvement over the original anyway.

[newbee]

ive found that its harder to make somthing excactly like the pattern,and like everyone has saidno two look alike anyway make it your work of art

Thanks for everyone's helpful encouragement and suggestions. I did the best I could and it looks fair. The actual carving part turned out to be the hardest part. It sure is ...... uh original.

Can anyone recommend a good relief carving book that gives lots of technique suggestions?

I haven't tried relief carving yet, and I'm itching to do so, but I just picked up Chris Pye's book and it looks pretty throrough for both low and high relief in teaching the basics. It looke easy to follow.