Using a bench knife undercut along the lower neck, head, and beak area of the goose. Use your wide sweep, straight chisel, or bull nose chisel to cut free a small sliver from the background wood.
Begin this step by re-tracing your pattern for the facial features or by marking it onto the wood with a pencil. Note that the beak sets in the face of the goose not on the front of it. There is a v-shape at the bottom of the beak that sets well into the lower chin area of the face.
Using a v-gouge cut along the division line between the forehead or skull area of the face and the goose’s cheek area. The eye falls on this line. Also v-cut along the intersection of the beak and face and along the separation line between the upper and lower beak. The v-cut does not need to be very deep.
With your straight chisel or bull nose chisel round over the skull away into the v-cut and the cheek area. The eye is not worked at this point. Roll the front of the face into the beak line.
Round over the eyeball area using the tip of your bench knife or chip knife. As I worked the head of my goose I decided that my cut line along the bottom of the beak was not flat enough – I had a ripple look to the cut. So I have re-cut this line with my bench knife. To make the small nostril hole in the upper beak area I have upended a small round gouge. Holding the gouge at a slight angle I can make a simple small push cut. Turning the board 180 degrees I can make a second small push cut which releases a little lemon wedge shape.
Work just enough to remove the rough loose fibers and dress out any wobbly stop cuts.
To add a little movement to an otherwise very flat area in both wings I will be adding a teardrop shaped dip in the wings. Pencil mark the dip area as shown in the photos, we will return to this area in a few steps.
Eleven patterns including Chickadees, Blue Jays, Gold Finches, Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers, and more. |
