Having been running spoon carving courses for several years now this is the first where we managed three days without a single cut. Carving with knives is perfectly safe if you are careful and learn a specific set of safe efficient cuts. This weekend we ran a developers spooncarving course for folk who had some experience or had been on a previous foundation course.
Everyone was really enthusiastic and seemed to move their skills along nicely.
Where on basic courses we priomarily use straight grained timber for these courses we start to use “crooks” or timber with a kink which gives more shape and strength to a spoon. I spent Thursday gathering crooks.
And here are some spoons.
As with the last developers course on the Sunday when I ofer folk the chance to work on a range of different projects everyone wanted to make a kuksa. These small drinking bowls from the sami culture are delightful to hold in the hand and a joy to make.
As always Nicola’s catering was very much appreciated, home made soup always seems to go down well and we get through lots of tea and biscuits.
Over the winter I will be running a trial of a bowlcarving course for just a few folk as guinea pigs to work out how best to pass on the skills of carving bowls like these.
From that second picture, it looks like you had it too easy Robin. :-)Nice to see the pieces they made. I presume from the shape that the rim of the Kuksa is the outer of the log?
I did actually have it quite easy. This group were all very safe.I see my job as providing a nice working environment, perfect raw material and tools and just the right amount of advice when it is needed. Too much input is actually bad for learning. Well spotted the kuksas are made rim to bark.