Customer Reviews

Carving Classic Female Figures in Wood: A How-To Reference for Carvers and Sculptors

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I sculpt the figure mainly in clay, but I have been thinking about trying woodcarving, so I bought this book to get a look at what was possible in wood. It is a very good presentation of how to create a figure in a carved medium.

The book illustrates the construction of two figures from start to finish - from making reference photos of the model, to roughing, to detailing, to finishing. The photos are clear, copious, in color, and are large enough to be easy to see when propped up on the workbench. The text is concise, but adequate. Also included are a number of excellent photos of Mr. Norbury's figure sculpture.

Most of the techniques shown are not really specific to wood, and there is no discussion of tools and technique, which is a bit of a disappointment with respect to my goal of learning about woodcarving. However, that is not really the fault of the author, since this is not intended as book for beginners.

On the plus side, I work mainly constructively in clay, and I hope the technique of working by carving will help me add some new approaches to my sculpture. I think many of the ideas and techniques illustrated will also be applicable to stone.

I'll give the best recommendation I can: based on this book, I plan on buying as many of Mr. Norbury's other books as I can.

For years, I struggled with sculpting the human form. Occasionally I got lucky and produced something that was "acceptable" but most of the time my carvings could be considered a contemporary distortion of the form-definitely not, what I started out to do. To say the least, my efforts were frustrating. The frustration ended when I purchased two of Mr. Norbury's books, "Carving Classic Female Figures in Wood" and "Carving Classic Female Faces in Wood"

In "Carving Classic Female Figures in Wood" Mr. Norbury explains sculpting the human torso from model to finished work. I was most impressed with his concept of holding things in the square while defining size, points of reference and protrusions before any rounded forming should begin. This helped me to easily maintain proportion.

Also very helpful was Mr. Norbury's plan of attack or sequence of events. This taught me that trying to work the whole project at once was futile. He defines a well-planed method that works. In the final stages, the anatomical drawings with simple explanations were very helpful. I can now go back to my anatomy books with greater understanding.

Finally, the gallery section was most inspirational. Seeing what another can do and armed with basic knowledge, I now have an attainable goal. Thank you Mr. Norbury.

This is a good reference for those interested in figure carving. It has steps on how to create acurate drawings from photos, an important part of the process. There are anatomy drawings to help in the understanding of what is happening as the figure pose changes. There are actual photos of a model to help relate the anatomical sketches and the working drawings.....a well done presentation!