One of a Kind Wood Carvings: "Elphaba and the Tiara"

The idea for "Elphaba and the Tiara" is from Kari, the person who received my last carving, "Kari Minion, The Tour Guide." Chris, the gentleman receiving this piece is an avid follower of everything Broadway. "Wicked" just happens to be his most popular play. The "Tiara" connection is that Chris works with the Miss America Beauty pageant contestants. And that's how a witch from "Wicked" and a Tiara come together.

The piece seemed easy enough to carve. The band saw had a good workout with this piece and saved me lots of time with the hand piece.

The piece started out with front and side view sketches. Once I realized how much wood I'd need to remove just to be able to actually begin the carving, I thought it best to give myself patterns to work from

(Front view)

(Side view)

I trimmed the front and side sketches and redrew the images to make it easier on the band saw and also give me templates for later.

Below, the sketches have been trimmed.

Now I can begin to "rough out" the piece.

Her arms out in front of her, hair to the left of her head and a fold "flying in the wind" at the left side of her dress.

Just keep thinking about what areas must be uncut to be sure to leave enough wood for protruding limbs, etc.

I was surprised to see how fast the "roughing" stage was but as they say, "the devil is in the details."

I spent more than a few hours just reducing the piece to reach the point where a piece begins to look

like the image you have in your mind.

The broom worked up quickly. A 1/8" dowel, a piece of cut wood from the scrap pieces and a few minutes with a burr and I had the broom ready for "fitting" into the piece.

I planned one of her hands to hold the broom and the other to hold the Tiara.

The broom is to be glued into a cut out in the dress and the left hand would be the second point to hold the broom. The broomstick is not glued in.

The Tiara was another issue. I hunted a few of the local arts and crafts stores to see if they had something I could use but all I found was a few rings. I ended up carving one but it took me two tries. The first one I cut it too thin. That's when I decided to not cut away the wood at the opening until I liked the way it was working out. This one worked!