Carving with Mary May

A few weeks ago I was watching Roy Underhill as I was eating. His guest was Mary May, a carver from South Carolina. She carved a cookie mold complete in half an hour even while Roy was talking his head off, gotta luv the guy!

Anyway, I cruised over to her site. She has lots and lots of video's available for a ridiculously low subscription rate, like 15 bucks a month (she puts out 4 new videos every month). All the videos are downloadable. She has a bunch of "beginner" videos available for free, like sharpening, how to hold the workpiece, etc.

I have been carving a while, doing some in the round stuff, caricatures, like that. Never was much good at relief. Well, after watching a few videos that has really changed for me. She actually shows every single cut she makes. Yea, it is a bit boring at times, but watching her shows how a piece really develops, not just the usual "Oh, in the interest of time, we have fast forwarded and here is how your piece should look now."

Here are a couple of projects I did from her videos...did I mention that she includes a PDF file template of all her stuff?

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The book and rose are not quite finished yet, have a little smoothing and some undercutting to do.

I have about 5 hours in the book project at this point. It is about 12 inches long, and about 1.25 deep. Fairly high relief.

This site is great if you are beginning or if you have been carving a while and just seem to be stuck in a rut. BTW, after watching her video on sharpening a V gouge, I can actually sharpen one now.

Here is a link to her site: https://www.marymaycarving.com/carvingschool/

I really like the book Ted. Look forward to seeing it when finished.

Thanks for the tip on May.
Fred

I was at Woodworking in America last fall and while checking in to my hotel held the elevator door for a young lady. After she got on, I said, "Oh, you're Mary May!". She looked a little surprised. Later that night, talked to here and Roy in the lobby. Nice people!