Acanthus leaves..... the old stand by.

[Mark Yundt]

If I didn't carve Acanthus leaves I'd be out of business.
With this last minute addition to a job I figured I'd show how I go about doing a set of left and right onlays. It's not too in depth but hopefully it gives you some ideas to try.
In this "installment" I'll show the basic layout which is very common to all designs. Lets face it, they are merely variations of one another and can easily be adapted to any situation. That's what makes this design so versatile and useful when you have to fill up a space with some sort of carving.

True to any design regardless how simple or complex is the basic line that flows through it. I always lean on a version of an S curve. If you stand this design on end you'll see it immediately. This design lets your eye flow from one end to the other and keeps it moving without break. Also it's a natural shape that if you stand it with the larger end on the bottom you can almost make out a Swans neck, head, body and wings sweeping back from it. Trust me, it's there.

Now most designs of this sort start from a curl of some sort and spiral out from it. I'm keeping this basic so the center of my swirl is a simple round button type shape. I just loosely freehand start a spiral and let the design expand from there. In this case it starts from the right , gradually opens and sweeps across to what could be a base line and then returns on itself.
As the design expands I keep sweeping lines from it to give me a general flow of the design and where it's going and this is where I'll build additional leaves.
Now most designs you see commercially done tend to look like they were done with a compass. Don't do that. They look too rigid and stiff. And if you think about it, an acanthus is a sort of lettuce looking plant. If it were coiled or draped gravity would play on it and not allow it to curl in a perfect circle. In this case the center button of the piece adds "weight" to the look and hence makes it droop. The center isn't in the center as you will see.
This also allows the piece to be used in either position. In one case the center of the design will droop and the rest of the design sweeps away from it. From the opposite view the rest of the design will fall away from it.
In these sequence sketches you can see the elements of what I was looking for. I just let my hand flow with the pencil and let the lines fall gracefully. As the design starts to reach across the page the lines gradually shift their direction from wanting to continue to follow the spiral to starting to stretch to the terminal end.
At the terminal end you 'll see that the leaf wants to curl again,, or is curled and wanting to straighten out. Think of this as how a fiddle head fern grows.
Maybe I'm writing too much and trying to let you in on what's going on in my mind and I should let the sketches talk for themselves.

[Mark Yundt]

Now that you've seen the sketches you can see how the first leaves coming off the swirl want to curve back into the circular beginning. The third leaf ( from the right) points nearly straight down. The fourth leaf it starting to go in the direction of the rest of the design. And what would be the 5th leaf actually becomes the link to the terminal end of the design. the final leaf, emerging from within the last leaf curls as if it's almost a hand curved on itself. Curl your own hand into almost a tight cup and then try to curl it into your wrist. the basic shape of what you did is found in this design. You can almost imagine as the leaf continues this final leaf will "unwind" and stretch out as well.
That's the basis for this design.

[Mark Yundt]

Now once I have a design ( and it's approved) I need to transfer it to the wood. Pretty simple I know but if you're new to this I 'll describe the way I do it for a left and right mirror image design.
The simplest way I think to make a mirror image of a design is simple. I like to use old fashioned carbon paper. Now as I attach the drawing to the stock I place two pieces of carbon paper , back to back under the design. Now when I trace the design onto the wood the exact same image is, at the same time copied to the back of the original. Cool huh?
So I continue tracing the design and when done , I turn it over and I have an automatically transferred design in the mirror image. Now just lay this on a second piece of stock and trace away with just one sheet of carbon paper.

Now it's just a matter of band sawing /jig sawing them out. Where I can't access the design with a band saw because the cutouts are within the perimeter of the design I use a jig saw. Drill a few holes for access and I'm good to go. Now one thing I did in a case like this where the center button of the design is rather fragile I leave a small bridge to act as a support while carving. Since it's small it's easy to cut off and finish after nearly all the other carving is done. Based on experience this is an area that always wants to snap off. This helps solve that problem. Though having a carving like this snap into pieces isn't really a big deal. In some cases to eliminate a lot of jig sawing, I'll purposely snap carvings into pieces so I can just use the band saw to do faster and more accurate cutting out. Works like a charm. And a snapped piece glues back together flawlessly. Imagine , or actually snap a pencil in two, now push the pieces back together again. Fits pretty well doesn't it? Same thing with carvings like this. Go ahead,, break them on purpose. Makes your life easier.

[Mark Yundt]

I happen to be using a hydraulic swivel vice but there is no reason you can't use a flat bench top. I did for years.
In this case I attached the carving to a chunk of smooth ply with carpet tape. Don't use the stuff that looks thin like skin. You want the stuff that looks like cloth.
I also cut off the extra plywood as it just gets in my way. Not very elegant looking but it's just holding a carving. Not pretty but it works for what I need.

[Mark Yundt]

Now just to make life easier I used a router to remove areas of the carving that I know will be deep and away from the surface. 5 minutes with a router rather than how much time with a chisel to just remove extra stock.
Just get it out of the way quickly as there is more than enough here to spend time carving rather than waste time and effort removing waste stock.This area,, especially the inner surface of the spiral design is most like a stalk of celery. You have to imagine a stalk of celery on its side and curling around on itself. That's what this part of an Acanthus looks like and does.

The most important time in carving is getting the basic form right. Too many times most people will try to start carving looking at the details. That's where most carvings fail and you can readily see it in the final product.
They look flat, lifeless, there isn't any movement. At the worst case you can still see the block the carving was started from in the final piece. Remember ,, everything falls within the parameters of the design and the way it moves.
For example consider a cluster of grapes. You've seen them. Now imagine carving them.
Do you start carving individual grapes? Nope. You don't unless you want the cluster to look like a block of wood. So what do you do?
Well imagine wrapping the cluster in Saran Wrap. Not to distort it but just to cover all the grapes as closely as possible yet span across all of them. That is the first shape you carve. What the grapes look like wrapped in Saran. The image would improve if the saran wasn't transparent so imagine it opaque. Got it? Good. You can imagine all the grapes in the cluster within this shape. Now you'd carve the individual grapes themselves and you'll end up with a natural looking grape cluster.
That's how you carve the form first and the details last. That's why I said carving the form ,, the overall shape is the most critical point in carving. Doing the details is the easy part.

[Ryan Mooney]

Good stuff Mark. Really appreciate you taking the time to break out the steps like this, really really helpful.

[Mark Yundt]

Hopefully you can make sense of it all. I'm so used to doing it that when I try to spell it out I'm afraid it all turns into gibberish! In my head it makes sense but that's only my perspective.
If I confused anything don't be afraid to ask.

[Brett Luna]

I'll have to give this thread a close read later. I'm also an occasional leather worker and it's nice to see the familiar acanthus pattern in wood.

[Roger Strautman]

You are wonderful teacher Mark! I'm working on my 10 Commandments and want to carve floral on the scroll but by way of chip carving. Floral is way out of my design box but what you just gave me will help. Thanks!

[Mark Yundt]

Thanks guys.
Acanthus has found its way onto everything from the early Greek's using it on their capitals and panels carved in marble, to wood , leather and even the engravings of shotguns and cutlery. It's a versatile form worth learning.

and Roger, please be careful when working on your project . You don't want to break any of them !!! Yuck -yuck . I just had to say that

[Paul Kasman]

Thanks from me, too. That is really interesting and great advice, to think of the object wrapped up initially. What kind of router are you using? A trim router with a small straight bit, free-hand, or what set up exactly. Thanks.

[Mark Yundt]

In this case I grabbed my Porter-Cable. I built a lucite base for it as it's more stable in situations like this and also aids visibility. I used a straight 3/16 bit. I also like to use trim routers as well which also has a wide base on it. In these situations like this it's all free hand.
Not sure if you saw it but the tree I built got a lot of router work as well. Ironically it's back in the shop now for more work.

[Mark Yundt]

I finished the carving today and got the second one roughed in and will continue carving it this evening.
So.
Once the router work was done I used a #2 -12 to start roughing it it. The actual chisel doesn't really matter. It could have been a #1,3,5,etc.I don't really care as I'm just removing stock. Here I'm only trying to do what I discussed earlier. Not find details but to simply get each of the leaves moving, getting the swirl to look like the stick of celery I described by just rounding over the outside radius of it.
Now here is something to consider. If I did the swirl all on the same plane I don't feel it would look right. As something like this unwinds, gravity, weight ( thinking as if it were a real leaf) it would be on different levels. So what I do to this area is make it undulate. From the center button it drops slightly ( the thickness of the stem) , rises, falls and then rises again. This just looks better and when mounted will catch light differently , cast different shadows and not look so rigid and uniform in its depth.
You can see the photo of the pencil which is sitting on the center button and how the remainder of the swirl is lower in sections and high in others.
I also like to get the main surfaces of the leaves moving in different directions but it's not an arbitrary decision. Some nearer the original swirl tend to tip inward towards the curves. The leaves that are mid way out will lay more flat and the ones that are further away will tend to go towards the terminal end. This adds a nice variety again without making them all look stiff, flat and uninteresting. Even in a small carving this adds so much to it without it looking like some machine or laser just burned out a profile of the piece.
And when you are carving a piece like this it can be handy to pencil in the lines you just carved away to have a good reference where the next cuts will be. In some area you may want to keep the fuller such as where the eyelets are. But then again with whatever surface you have, everything else is just below that level so there is always enough wood to finish a carving.
Even though this has only seen one chisel I tend to think you can see just how the leaves are laying,, how the swirl is appearing to open up, the curl at the terminal end is starting to show just what it will be and the only thing done is to remove some waste wood. This tells me I'm finding the form.

[Mark Yundt]

Once the basic shapes are found I start to lay in the primary lines that give the leaves direction. These are very close to the initial lines I drew just on the paper. These establish the lines, the rise and fall and the main stem of each leaf. Visually it is what gives the piece it's flow. It's what your eye follows.
Using just a V too I lay in the stems and watch for odd kinks in the lines. They should be smooth and graceful looking.

The main surfaces have only seen a V tool and the #2. I did use a 8 or 9,,, something really curved to start cleaning out the inner curve of the swirl. My celery stick!

[Mark Yundt]

Now here I start to refine each element of the leaf. The various off shoots , extra leaves and basically do the same thing I did to the entire piece just on a smaller scale. They too rise, fall , sweep off in different directions but still they have to remain cohesive to the entire piece. Nature can get away with all sorts of odd things, but in a carving it has to have an overall flow.

It would be silly of me to say at this point " use a # 8 to carve this leaf,, a #7 to do this,,, bla, bla ,bla because chances are you are not carving this exact piece. Even so,, you wouldn't have to use that exact chisel any how! If you have some common sense you'll probably realize very quickly that if you want a deeply curved leaf you'll use a deeply curved chisel. If you want something with a deep crease like the center vein of the leaf you won't use a flat chisel,, no ,, you'd use a V chisel.
If you look at a carving you'd like to use as an example,, or try to carve,, simply look at the curves created it in and it will tell you what chisel to use.
Besides,, you can make a # 3 carve like a 5,, a #7 can make the same basic cuts as an 8 or 9 depending on its size. No one chisel ever makes just one cut. Now how,, no way. And each leaf in this example isn't made with one pass of say a #8 chisel.

Also you'll notice that one section is partially sanded. I wasn't going for a finish here. At times a quick scuff with some paper shows just how the carving is progressing. Granted going over sanded wood with a chisel can dull it,, but doing this, sanding, tells me a great deal.