Easy Carve Cardinal in a Dowel -Full Knife Only Woodcarving Tutorial

Happy New Year everybody We are back today with a fun little carving that I have wanted to do for a long time in many different ways, but Not so much in the dowel carving But I really want to do it in the dowel or in a stick or in a piece of wood So when I say a dowel, I'm referring to a one-inch Hardware store dowel. They're normally they're poplar. You don't have to buy basswood dowels. They're normally they're poplar And like I said many times I'll say it again At the hardware store if you can get your fingernail in it that's a good piece of a dowel, but as you will see today that I've run out of my nice soft stuff and then reusing a harder piece, but Stick stick you can just make it stick take the bark off it one by one by one basswood pine or whatever just Round over this is really bright a Just round it Enough of that, this is what we're gonna be making a variation of our little Cardinals with the turned head Now you say why are the heads all turned? Because I couldn't fit a cardinal Straight with the beak sticking out this way and our little dowel and I Like I like them. I really like them They're not all the same something different But that's our project for today real fun really it's a beautiful bird in fact the females are just as beautiful in my in my opinion, but You know this shape to this shape will lend itself to not just Cardinal either you can you can configure a blue jay out of that with the painting cockatiel parrot whatever but Yeah, that's what we're doing today. So without further ado Get cracking. All right. We got our dowel here. This dowel is what is it? It is Five inches or so, but it doesn't matter if it's you know, three and a half four inches It's just depends what you want to put it on, right? so we're gonna stick with the dowel instead of the sticks or the basswood just because this is a very generic very simple and it's the same right across the board whereas sticks may vary and I look forward to doing those these kind of things and sticks on camping trips and whatnot. Okay, so This way it's exact and we don't think about it, but first thing we're gonna do is gonna come down here about Good two and a half inches, which is what's that? 60-63 millimeters or so And then we're gonna put a center line on it. Okay, that's the that's the bottom. That's the top All right, and take that line and just kind of roughly go across. Okay Just like so All right, we got two more measurements to do here so this Cardinal as you can see as his head Has his head turned Get your words out Doug turned his head just so he'll fit it within the dowel. Okay But the body does not turn so the body is this way and the head is turned. Okay, so that Therefore man, I haven't spoken enough today therefore I'm gonna put these marks over here and go around three quarters of an inch and an inch and a half And that would be what what would that be? That's 18 and 36 millimeters. All right and take that around roughly it doesn't Run that around the best you can all right, and then Let's think about this. That's the bottom of the tail. Okay on the tail sits like this head is turn like this So it's not a true It's not a true quartered. We're gonna go a little bit On an angle. All right, so more of an X There, okay Now I'll take that line down here And that will be the center of the beak in the bottom. All right, but let's put him aside and Let's just jump right into it. We're at the bat bottom of the tail. Let's get that set in there a little angle cut Cut up to it Folks, this is one of those hard dowels. I Had a good run with some nice beautifully soft dowels. I thought I was gonna save some and I used it all up on my practice pieces, but bottom the tail and again, we're gonna be cutting off all the outer edge of the wood just so that the paint takes the same but If you want to go right down the bottom now, you can from the tail But we'll do it at the end. Anyway, okay Fairly what is that a good healthy eighth of an inch? It's like so okay come over here this is uh, give me right here It's gonna come in We're only gonna do this right on that line for now Well, this is a tough one Thanks, but let's Let's bully through it because You might get a tough one so you can relate to each other Top of your post stump, whatever you want doesn't have to be straight in It can be a little bit of an angle or it can be straight in if you want it to be This in there Like so, all right, that's a healthy Healthy quarter-inch in all right This line here. This is the beak. All right Right there Beak is the point of that line. So I'm gonna go down and this is just rough setting everything up. All right. Oh You are a miserable devil Wow All right, I'm gonna go the other way All right Put my line back in All right now We got one more line to do if that's the bottom Bottom line there. You can hardly see it. Let's come down quarter inch three eighths and Come across a healthy half an inch and then you see that line there Let's go a little wide Somewhat similar All right This is just I'm just winging that it's not that critical same thing gonna go down Go up to it So as this is the bottom So you see that's the bottom of the tail feathers. That's the bottom of the wings. Okay They're gonna run the wings cut down That line down Come right beside one side here and like so All right a little bit deeper Let's pop out just a little bit more this side's not too bad All right now Now we know where to tuck the tail feathers in. Okay, so We'll bring those tail feathers up The same idea again, and then we're gonna leave this alone go up to the head All the finishing touches at the end. Okay, I put I Set that glove out there. I said, you know what? Let's do that. I Set that out to be a good example on these because I'm more slippery and they like to Roll and slide so not that it's not always a good idea, but sometimes it's a better idea than others Miserable piece of split that off for you. That's okay because we're gonna angle that side This knife that I'm using I'm gonna bring up those edges to come around and around the bottom of it knife that I'm using today is a OCC tools, I think it's an inch and three-eighths Real nice little knife. I have this is one of my first knives the Good old Jean Messer Was using a Ron Wells knife which became I'm gonna forget all the names that I've been Danny that became OCC tools so I believe this is either the No, I know it's a it's OCC tool But it's still nice. Okay, that's the tail side roughed out not complete in any way Okay. Now we've got our line here so right about from this Shoulder area here. We're gonna angle we're gonna come to that line Mohawk in the side of that head Close to the line this side. That's why that line is nice. So now we're keeping everything square Can't help but to make it square with the line on there. Let me show you something here this This was my last devil took the whole thing out of one So when you're at the hardware store Get your try and get your fingernail if your fingernail can put a nice dent in there easily, that's a good dowel this one here Not so much but like I said, I want to I Want to feel your pain too when you tell me that your devil is hard All right, see what we did there kind of a goofy looking piece of wood there, but That's what it is On our little birdie here We don't need you can see there's a little swale of that line comes straight up and see how that's in a bit So we can take off We can shorten that up a bit Alright now you can see the line on the beak here centered now, I'm gonna go across here. I want to Was that that's probably a 45-degree angle I'm gonna stand up the side of that right to the point of that beak one way And the same thing the other way So that our beak is pointed when we're done All right Now from that point, I'm gonna come across See our head and come right like that And of course, we don't want a flat head so we're gonna thin that again both sides Hook in there, that's where we're at. All right now when you see the thickness So we're gonna put shoulders on our bird just below the beak So basically we're thinning the whole head like that And do that all the way around Keep coming back looking at straight on make sure happy So that side is a little lower than that side Not bad Now this little Crown up here. There's a little tuft of feathers. That's all it is is feathers. So we need to Really thin that. Feathers don't have any meat in them And we can even come in the back here and put a little little cut in the back just to show that's a Side There you go, just something that'll show a little Now let's leave that alone for a minute actually, let's not let's bring up the corners of the beak That's a flat bottom. We're gonna make a little Little angle cuts up each side Okay That bark is from our new puppy Billy I'll show him to you soon. I won't talk about him. He must be seen Ridiculously All right Now that I've worn most of this line off of here And we can finish that right around feather feather side to feather side Sorry guys That'll make the wood softer wanna Try to create a uniform ledge around here Right to the feathers. Yeah. All right. Nope. Not. All right one more cut All right, so now we got that cut in you can see that's all Pretty uniform cuts still have some other wood here. So it's gonna go around then that a little bit more but really just Make nice little facets all around nothing in lines randomly So easy to have a row of facets You gotta go up and down up and down Okay, look at that looks nice and even All right, I can live with that Clean that a little bit better in the bottom So what is this bird sitting on it could be a post could be a stump or? whatever you want to be so make it accordingly if you want to if you had a Branch you could have that on a branch and have a branch come outside. I think I put a knot hole on one of these I'll not these are just pretty generic facets on there. But yeah, we gotta go around and We want to take all that face wood off because the paint will take it differently if you leave that Tool edge Run that around quick like a bunny Yeah, so I like to I like to this summer on the camping trips really focus on Sticks and make these all these all these dowel stick carvings. I've been doing nice to make And the bush real sticks not just a dowel but What a great Great way to learn what you're carving There's something from the hardware store so That's still a factory edge on the side of the wing. I want to just kind of round that over a bit We're gonna do Take our pencil here Let's split that We'll do a little little V up here All right stick my knife in 45 this way this way Hopefully I can just cut that out See that's slippery Okay, that's the top of our Wing and now let's take that down 45 You got a b-tool you could make this carving a lot faster, but I'm sticking to the knife Hard to see but it's there. I think I'll just do a little Little chip out of the bottom here. I'm gonna separate them You know shadow in there behind there I always say I'm I'm filming and I don't want you to be bored If you take your time and go around and undercut things Make things pop a little bit more Get it just a little bit better result. Just a little bit of shadow Under the tail under the wings and whatnot. All right but We're gonna do some eyeballs Now I struggled with these eyes for a long time So I figured a little system Actually, I lied I lied too soon, let's put the beak on do the beak and then we'll do the eyes So Let me show you some mistakes This is the beak that I like. It's a bigger bigger Taller beak that's where I started out. I didn't really know My practice ones tiny beak don't like tiny beak. That's why I turn it this way All right, I like that beak Same that bigger bigger beak It's big If I want to draw a line across here That's how big we're talking But be very very careful. I'm just gonna put my knife on here just Sliding my knife on there. Don't push at any point I don't break so fast. It's very gently Easing it in there. It's not too deep this side nice and light But that's our our beak is set now either you can paint this sucker orange and take a fine black marker and open it up or Carefully Got a little tiny little beak on that beak Slide it down one way All right That's our beak, okay now I'm going to take my knife here. I'm just gonna come up on each side of that so the Two equal planes like that. Yeah Right about the top of the beak here, I'm gonna draw a line across here Draw a line across here and hope they look the same Okay, I'm gonna put a line this way and this way And You're not gonna be able to see what I'm doing. I've got a piece of wood here If you try to draw an eyeball that eyeball eyeball sticks proud of the The bird it doesn't it's not an inset. Eye. Okay, but if you try to draw that around there, it's very difficult. Okay So the idea with that line Alright, so I drew a line on there It's really big. I Said that's how big I want my eye All I'm gonna do stick my knife in Straight in that Straight in like that Then I know that those cuts and here and here Across like that. I got I got I got This little stab it in here Stab it in here And of course here Then I'm gonna come from here. I'm gonna come across 45 There 45 This way No, I can Just start rounding And you can take all the time you want rounding that I'm not going to Get too carried away on a scrap of wood but much easier Yeah, you can fill around around all the edges down Then you get your ball, right So that's what I'm gonna do here I'm only gonna do one side guys. Don't worry. I won't bore you with doing both sides, but there's my little thing there Come across an angle Chip pops up Train comes by again. Yeah, I can hardly see that. There's a little whisker left in there Tough old You tough old dowel, okay Now I'm gonna go around that and the beauty of this The beauty of this whole thing here is that it's all gonna be black you paint it black so that it's You can hardly see the ball, but you need the ball there you go Anyway, I'll do the other side and come back. All right, two eyes It's all you need Three would be funny looking. Oh I'm gonna put a little bit of a hook on that Tail feather there. It's not a tail feather either. I know that whatever you call that thing. Yeah All right, so I'm looking around. I'm looking around. I want to make sure I got lots of Lots of small facets. No facets in a line All right Really this one Where is this one? That's what that looks like paint it up All right, just plain If you want to get creative you can take a I did it. Where's the one I did some wood burning on this one Well, it'll not there's all wood burnt. It's the lines did on all the undercutting with the wood burner but the rest of these are just a very light black paint wash and all the Cuts and shadows and then painted the red Yeah Just a little bit of a black wash there it doesn't take much at all just to give a little shadow of color But yeah, but otherwise just puts a little bit cuts up there. I Think I like it See I ended with these ones now We're getting a little chubbier now, and I like them. I like them chubby like that Okay, so these three are probably my best these are more practice ones back here Yes, this guy's in the same category. All right You can see how I just kind of painted them a little bit kind of kind of a blend between but best thing to do would be to get a do a Google search of Do a good Google Do the Googles do a Google search of Cardinal just so you know where to where to paint and whatever but anyway Like I said take your time go around Undercut things give it shadows All right But say all in all I'm pretty tickled that put some water on here just to Show off all the cuts and shadows That is our turned head Cardinal and a stubborn old tough Dell but I Like it. Oh Boy, look at this This is my new puppy. Hey This is Billy Billy is a she Billy is a new peepoo and Like I said just a puppy, but how old are you? I think she's a 13 weeks, so she's gonna be a gonna be a big girl, but we come to We had to get her didn't we? Anyway, there you go. That's the barker. That's the barks you hear We got Finn and Gwen and now Billy Sounds like a horse running around up here, but there is our fun little Cardinal carving. Hope you like it. Hope I Make some of these out on a trip with a stick sometime, but very very enjoyable I always loved Cardinals and I always wanted to carve a Cardinal and this dowel. I Just find that these dowel carvings make carving so accessible Get everybody across the board. So stick dowel like I showed you earlier the Round a piece of one by one square just make it round Or take a stick unfortunately in this kind of carving be cool to have that that Cardinal With the bark, but just because of all the thinning and the tails and the feathers You have to take the bark off to get the depth so in this case, it doesn't quite work with the bark left on but It's free wood, man Anyway, thanks for anybody who hit the tip jar this week. And yeah, I look forward to getting back outside and doing some stuff It's been a rainy after lots of snow. We've got rain and warm temperatures now we're going cold again and sleep and dirty weather, but we'll be out again and I'll see you then. Thanks for watching everybody