There is no difficulty for one who has mastered the first six lessons of this book, in carving half a duck or fish in relief. If he could carve the other side and join them he would have the animal complete. From blocking out simple forms, such as ducks, fish, hares, or game, in high relief, the carver soon learns how to “rough” almost anything. Having made a bust in clay, he knows where a bit is to be removed or cut away here or there. He studies it as he proceeds, alternately in profile or full-face, and continually measures with callipers and compasses to see that he is preserving all the proportions. The practice which he has had in delicately carving, grooving, sweeping, and modelling leaves, in cutting the hair of game, imitating basket-work, etc., will all now come into play. As regards fitting certain tools to form the eye-balls, eye-lids, etc., if the pupil does not as yet know the measure and capacity of his tools, he has worked to little purpose. If he should be in doubt from time to time, let him just carve an eye, or a lip, or mouth, on a piece of waste wood, and he will have no difficulty in repeating it; and he who grudges the time for such practice will never make an artist, Fig. [53].
The great difficulty in carving in deep relief and in the round, is to get the general sweep and contour and proportions of the whole, and this is difficult for a pupil who does not design, and shade, and model, while it is a mere trifle to one who does. The cutting and blocking out, which seems to be the great difficulty, is a merely mechanical process, performed with compasses, carving tools, and rasps, and sometimes with a steel bow-saw, here and there. And it presents no difficulties to any intelligent person who has carefully executed all that is described in the previous lessons, especially to one who has carved animals and simple figures, or faces, in high relief.
Fig. 53. High Relief. Design by C. G. Leland.
It is true that in shops where much large and coarse work is executed, as, for instance, great pieces for ceilings, figures for façades, and the like, the sculptor, trained from the beginning to the sweep-cut and to bold chipping, makes little account of any difficulty, and proceeds to carve with great confidence. Now what the student must endeavour to attain is some of the confidence of the mere workman with the culture and knowledge of the artist. And he should, whenever an opportunity presents itself, try to see practical carvers of all kinds at work, for in this way he will learn much which no books give.
It is to be recommended that the first attempts at carving in the round be made in soft pine wood, as it is of course most easily modelled. No one should be discouraged because a first or second effort has turned out a failure.
I have observed that many writers on the art treat carving in high relief, or in the round, as if the first effect in it must necessarily be a human head or figure, that is to say, the most difficult of all objects. But he who can cut out a wooden shoe, or a rabbit, or a fish, or the simplest object, on a large scale, on all its sides, will, if he repeats this till he can do it easily, have mastered the greatest difficulty which alarms beginners, that of blocking out from all sides.