Relief Carve a Winter Lighthouse

Lighthouses make great relief scenes. This particular scene captures the bright warmth of the lighthouse in contrast with the cold winter night. The project provides many hours of carving fun and employs a few special techniques to enhance your relief carvings. This derivative work is based on a painting by Jesse Barnes and is reproduced with his permission.

I use an oval basswood blank, but other board shapes can be used as well. A non-slip pad secures the piece during the entire carving of the project. 

 

Start by transferring the pattern to the blank. Draw a horizontal centerline across your blank. Tape a copy of the pattern to the blank with masking tape and slip a piece of carbon paper between the blank and the pattern. Slide the carbon paper around as you trace the lines with a red ballpoint pen. Use the water’s horizon and the base of the shrubs in front of the house as guides for leveling the scene against the centerline. Omit the fine details when transferring the pattern to save time. Remove the pattern and carbon paper.

 

1. Outline the major elements. Use a bench knife. Make stop cuts perpendicular to the surface of the wood around the major features. Then cut up to the stop cuts with a bench knife to free the chips. These second cuts are called relief cuts. Leave extra stock around the lines to allow for clean-up later. Continue to make stop cuts and use a Vi” #7 gouge for the relief cut on secondary elements.
2. Carve the background. Use a 5/w” #8 gouge and %” flat fishtail skew for the tight areas. Carve the sky down to a depth of %” in the deepest areas. Recess the lighthouse back to a depth of’/2″, then use wider #3 gouges to make this surface as flat as possible. Leave the railing of the lighthouse and chimney smoke raised. Clean up any leftover stop cuts using a #3 gouge.
3. Carve the foreground. Carve the trees and shrubs back to a depth of Make an angled cut alongside the steps, but leave the steps raised. Draw the windows, door, and eaves. Use a straight edge wherever possible and make sure the two windows on each side of the door are the same width and height. Leave the eaves wide enough for the icicles. Draw the snow and icicles on top of the door.
4. Break the major elements into the smaller components. Carve the right side of the house ’/is” deeper than the left side and redraw the right window. Leave the eaves, shutters, windows, and door raised by carving the wall W deeper. Take the lighthouse cap and railing section down to W. Carve the steps down ’/s”. Round the sides of the trees and draw the tree boughs.. 
5. Carve the water and fence posts. Carve around the lower rocks. Stop cut around the top of the large wave and use a #7 gouge to remove the wood below it. Remove wood around the fence posts except where they meet the ground. Carve the rocks on the cliff. Lower the large rock so the water appears to splash over it. Separate the fence posts from the railing with a l/s” V-tool. Round the posts with a #3 gouge. 
6. Shape the boughs. Start at the top of the tree and work downward on one side. Make straight stop cuts on all of the bough lines. Repeat this process on the other side of the tree. Then make the relief cuts using a bench knife. Use a Ум” #8 gouge to carve some of the areas a little deeper. Make sure each bough has a continuous slope up to the bough above it. Lower the bushes an additional 1/16. 
7. Carve the house. Carve the window panes Ум” deeper than the walls. Then flatten them with #3 gouges. Carve between the icicles with a Ув” U-gouge. Separate the snow on top of the door and lower the door. Lower the pillar of the lighthouse Ув” more between the railing and the house roof. Lower the railing area until it is Vs” above the pillar. Taper the house roof. The left and right peaks are deepest and are the same depth as the pillar.
8. Shape the lighthouse. Taper the cap. Make a stop cut between the cap and the windows and deepen the windows. Round the lighthouse’s sides. Taper the area below the railing to meet the pillar with a #3 gouge. This creates a bevel between the railing and the underside of the lighthouse. Use the same technique for the area under the cap. Shape the rocks lowering the bottoms to meet the water.
9. Finish carving the trees. Use a Уз” #3 gouge to angle the tip of each bough inward so it looks like snow weighs down the boughs. Drive Ум”, Vs”, and Ум” U-gouges straight in on the bottom of each bough. Remove any chips with a toothbrush. Use a Ум” #8 gouge to taper the boughs in and under the boughs above them. Use a Vs” U-gouge to lightly texture the top of the boughs, but keep them relatively smooth to produce the look of snow. 
10. Carve the icicles and snow. Use a Vs” V-tool to make cuts up toward the roof leaving the icicles pointed at the bottom. Make sure the icicles are random lengths. Round the top of the shrubs and pierce a few little holes in the front of the shrubs using Vs” and Ум” U-gouges The shrubs are covered with snow so don’t add too much texture. Clean up any gouge marks on the house using #3 and skew gouges.
11. Carve the bricks and stones. Use a ruler to draw the horizontal lines spacing them about Ум” apart. Draw the vertical lines, staggering them from one row to the next. Alter a few stones by making some two rows high and making a few angled lines. Cut along the lines with a detail knife held at a 75° angle. Use a toothbrush to remove the chips. Round each stone with a detail knife and add texture to them with a shallow fishtail gouge. 
12. Finish carving the lighthouse. Separate the stones on the sides of the lighthouse pillar with a Ум” V-tool. Draw in and carve the lighthouse window. Taper the left side of the chimney down to meet the sky. Draw in the chimney stones; the horizontal lines on the left side taper toward the back. Carve the bricks with а Ум” V-tool. Round the smoke and shape it with U-gouges. Make horizontal cuts to texture the smoke with a Vs” U-gouge.
13. Carve the water. Round the top of the water near the horizon. Use Vs” and Vis” U-gouges to texture the water splashing over the large rock and along the top of the large wave. Use a Ум” U-gouge to carve horizontal lines in the water giving the appearance of swells. Repeat the process using Vs” and Ум” U-gouges to add additional texture. Vary the motion by angling the horizontal cuts, especially below the large wave.
14. Finish carving the cliff and fence posts. Texture the cliffs using a Vs V-tool and a detail knife. Use a Ум” V-tool to separate the snow from the top of the fence posts and railings and use the same V-tool to carve the wood grain on the fence posts. Use a Vis” U-gouge to create a few knot holes by driving the gouge straight into the wood and popping out the chips. 
15. Carve the path and light beams. Use a Vis” U-gouge to carve the path. The path narrows as it approaches the door. Create snow drifts using a ’/2″ #7 gouge. Use а У2″ #5 gouge to texture the snow. Carve the steps with a Vs flat gouge. The steps get progressively deeper toward the top. Trim the sides of the steps square. Draw lines starting from the lamp. Use a Vi’ #7 gouge to make continuous grooves, leaving high ridges to simulate the light beams.
16. Finish the carving. Undercut around the roof, between the cliffs and water, and around the fence and trees. Sand the border, sides, and back. Flatten the area for the moon using a #3 gouge and draw it in. Draw the shutters and window panes. Woodburn the shutters, windows, doors, and railing. Use the side of a spear tip to shade the shutter frames and railing. Use the edge of the spear tip to separate the shutters and window panes. 
17. Apply a base coat. Use a 20:1 (20 parts water to 1 part paint) mixture of water and French blue. Use a ’//-wide flat brush to paint the sky and water, leaving the area around the light unpainted. Use a #6 shader brush for the small areas. Paint the undercuts and crevices. Dilute the wash with an additional 20 parts of water and paint the bricks, roof, snow, and smoke.
18. Add darker shadows. Use a 20:1 mixture of water and Payne’s gray. While the base coat is wet, blend the Payne’s gray wash into the dark sky areas near the border, around the top of the house and trees, and above the water horizon. Use the same wash to darken the deeper areas of the water and the shadows in the trees and shrubs.
19. Paint the trees and details. Use a 20:1 mixture of water with each color. Paint the trees and shrubs with Hooker’s green. Use burnt umber for the door, fence posts and rails, and shadows on the trees and shrubs. Paint the rocks, cliff, chimney, shutters, lighthouse cap, under the railing, and window in the pillar with carbon black. Use the carbon black wash to add shadows to the trees, shrubs, under the icicles, and along the right side of the pillar. 
20. Paint the illuminated areas. Use a 10:1 mixture of water and cadmium orange for the unpainted sky area, the windows, the railing, and the area where the light shines on the snow. Blend in the thinned Payne’s gray and French blue when painting the snow. Use a 10:1 mixture of water and Indian yellow and apply it to the same areas. To avoid giving the sky a green tint, do not paint as far out with the yellow as you did with the orange.
21. Paint the moon and moonlit areas. Use a 10:1 mixture of water and Naples yellow to paint moonlight onto the background. Paint the moon with full-strength Naples yellow. Blend cadmium orange into the bottom of the moon and titanium white into the top of the moon. Let the paint dry. Apply a 50:50 mixture of water and titanium white where the moon reflects on the water. The reflection widens as it approaches the bottom of the scene.
22. Highlight the snow and light areas. Apply the titanium white mixture to the snow on the ground, fence posts, railings, trees, shrubs, roof, icicles, and left side of the lighthouse pillar. Then highlight the stones on the house and chimney, the chimney smoke, and the stones on the cliff. Blend some of this mixture into the sky between the orange and blue.
23. Add the reflections and shadows. Apply full-strength titanium white to the high spots on the water and the heavy snow on the trees and shrubs. Blend some Indian yellow and cadmium orange onto the trees and shrubs for the reflection of the light. Apply some of the thinned carbon black and thinned paynes gray around the fence posts, pathway, and the bottom of the swells to add more shadows. Let the paint dry.
24. Drybrush the carving. Pick up a small amount of titanium white with a ’//-diameter round brush. Remove most of the paint on a paper towel. Stroke the brush perpendicular to the raised areas on the crests of the waves, cliffs, stones on the buildings, chimney, smoke, trees, shrubs, fence posts, railings, and snow drifts.
25. Finish the carving. Paint the border and back with a 10:1 mixture of water and burnt umber. Allow the paint to dry for 72 hours and then seal the carving with water-based varnish. After the varnish dries, apply two or three coats of Deft Polyurethane Spray. Let the finish dry between coats. Wipe down the flat surfaces with a crumpled-up paper bag between coats.

 

MATERIALS:

• 1″ x 14″ x 18″ routed oval basswood board
•           Lead pencil
• Large rubber eraser
• Carbon paper
• Masking tape
• Sandpaper: 60,150,240 grits
• JoSonja acrylic paints: French blue, Hooker’s green, burnt umber, carbon black, Indian yellow, cadmium orange, titanium white, Payne’s gray, Naples yellow
• Water-based varnish
• Deft satin polyurethane spray

 

TOOLS:

• Non-slip pad
• Toothbrush
• 6″-long and 12″-long rulers
• Carving glove
• Wood burning tool
• Standard carving knife
• Detail bench knife
• 14″ flat fishtail skew

 

• #3 long-bent gouges:

            VS”,3/S”,5/8″

           .’/2″ #5 gouge

• ’/2″ #7 gouge
• 5/i6″ #8 short-bent gouge •’/is” (1mm) U-gouge
• 1/s” (2 mm) U-gouge
• Ум” U-gouge
• ’/is” (1 mm) V-tool
• Ув” (2mm) V-tool
• Nylon brushes: ’/2″ flat,

16″ round, #6 shader