Bas relief wood carving

In my last post I told you how to make a rustic modern bench. Now I will tell you about the bas relief wood carving I did on the top of it. I used to carve little animal totems out of wood with a razor blade when I was bored but this is a little different.

I got a Japanese wood carving set a long time ago and have mostly used it for carving pumpkins but the cedar I got to make the bench top is so soft I knew I had to carve something into it. My favorite animal is a beaver so I start with a pencil drawing of my beaver. When I see it drawn out I decide it needs a little more so I add some simple leaves and a branch for him to gnaw on.

Now with my first wood carving tool, just an angled chisel I dig my lines in. I make them even deeper with my smallest "V" tool. Very quickly I learned to wear gloves because the wood handles were not ergonomic.

Now I use my bigger "U" shaped tool to go with the grain outside the lines. Sometimes you have to angle about straight down to do this but you won't get any chips and it is easier to carve with the grain. I do about to two inches outside the lines.  These are the only three wood carving tools I use for this carving.

I go all around my nose, eye, ear, and the tops of my legs to carve the outside deeper so these features stand out. Sometimes I go back to the angled chisel to dig deeper and then continue with my big "U".

I use my small "V" to scratch in the fur. and put a little texture to the branch and make the veins in the leaves.

I now use a coffee ground stain to darken all my carving marks.If you don't know what this means you should. Wet coffee grounds give a nice walnut-like stain to the wood. I rub it in and then get a brush to really get the grounds into the grooves. Now brush the excess off and let it dry.

Now is the time to sand the wood. Just a little though. The low carved spots will keep the dark stain and the rest with be natural wood color and soft since this is a bench to sit on. I say only a little sanding because you might take off some of the beautiful detail that went into the wood.

It is time to put on your protection. I used log cabin clear gloss. It takes about two days to dry but gives a good gloss and UV protection. Normally I would just use water-based polyurethane since it is so nice to use and gives a sheen between semi and full gloss although it says glossy. I was almost thinking about doing epoxy to make it look super expensive but since it will be outdoors all the time and it freezes here it is not the best for my project.