Five Styles of Relief Wood Carving

Since I was rambling on yesterday about tonal values / shadows and light, I thought I would show you how those tonal values are captured in our wood carving.

There are five main styles of relief carving – incising, sunken, low, middle, and high.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s posting, Tonal Values Add Depth to Your Wood Carving, Pyrography, and Colored Pencil Projects.

Click on the image below for the full-sized jpg.  Keep a copy on your computer for reference when working your next wood carving project.

Incised carvings, also called intaglio, are extremely flat and have little or not actual shadows on the main elements as those elements are not carved. Instead the background areas are carved to a very shallow depth and then cut with fine, sharp lines. This is the common techniques used for engraving.

Sunken relief is where the main elements are carved down into the wood and the background is left at its original depth. This is most often found in Egyptian stone carving.

Low or bas relief, also called basso-relieva, is a shallow carving technique where the joint lines between the main elements and the background are straight cut and visible. Few shadows are created in the work so this may also be called silhouette carving.

Middle relief, Canada Goose Relief Wood Carving Project, is the first carving technique that uses some undercuts to create darker shadows along the edges of some elements. Usually less that one-half of the element edges will be undercut with the remain edges or joint lines worked as bas or low relief.

High Relief, sometimes called alto-relieva or deep relief, heavily uses the technique of undercutting to make the main elements of the design appear to be free floating above the background. The shadow created by high relief range from extremely black to soft tones.

Cheryl Coupland is showing a fantastic example of high relief in her carved and painted floral bouquets.
https://www.facebook.com/cheryl.coupland…

Please keep a copy of my Quick Guide on your computer for reference and for ideas on how to approach your next project.

Practice these styles of wood carving with our free, online projects.

Mule Deer Relief Wood Carving

Relief Carving the Canada Goose

Wood Carving Celtic Dragon

Thanks for reading. ~Lora