Thanks to the suggestions from one of my office "spies" (Debby), "Cheryl the HandyWOman" is going home to a fellow Cast Member who has taken a liking to home projects. Working on projects around the house has become a wonderful change of pace and extremely rewarding for Cheryl.
For this wood carver, the most rewarding part of selecting the piece to carve is to "personalize" the caving to fit the recipient. In Chery's case, I went back in time. Back to my old black and white TV days. In the '60s & 70's I remembered an actress who was in a commercial wearing coveralls. Thanks to Google, I searched and found "Josephine the Plumber." Josephine was a wonderful actress named Jane Withers. Her commercial was about Comet Cleanser but she is a perfect character for this carving.
The carving is sketched onto a block of tupelo carving wood and ready for "roughing out."
Trying not to waste too much wood I decided to move this piece to an edge of the block to allow me to save blocks of good carving wood. That meant I had to "shave" the drawing off the face of the block, trim the thin drawing of the figure and then retrace it to the right. By doing so I am able to save usable block pieces rather than throw away the trimmings.
The trimmed sketch offers a template that can be placed over the front or back of the figure for reference points.
Back
Originally, I planned to have her hand resting on her hip. However, seeing that Cheryl is a "HandyWOman" a hammer in her hand seemed much more appropriate.
The hammer was a quick work-up. A 1/8" dowel and a piece of scrap worked nicely.
The hammer is fitted to her hand.
Once the roughing stage is over the fun begins. Getting a chance to finally bring out the details is most rewarding.
"Cheryl the HandyWOman" is to be inlaid to the base. You can see that I remained true to my template but I still tend to leave some features (hands, head) somewhat too thick or thin.
I believe some carvings, to be appreciated, will need to be handled so I tend to leave my carvings somewhat thicker when carving certain features of a piece.
She's sealed and ready for paint.
I hope you like "Cheryl the HandyWOman."
