In small pieces of furniture like these, which are made of comparatively thin wood, the carving need not have much depth, say the ground is sunk 1/4 in. at the deepest. As oak is more tenacious than pine, you will find greater freedom in working it, although it is so much harder to cut. You may find it necessary to use the mallet for the greater part of the blocking out, but it need not be much used in finishing. A series of short strokes driven by gentle taps of the mallet will often make a better curve than if the same is attempted without its aid.
It will be well now to procure the remainder of the set of twenty-four tools if you have not already got them, as they will be required for the foliage we are about to attempt. The deep gouges are especially useful: having two different sweeps on each tool, they adapt themselves to hollows which change in section as they advance.
Fig. 32 contains very little foliage, such as there is being disposed in small diamond-shaped spaces, sunk in the face of the doors, and a small piece on the bracket below. All this work should be of a very simple character, definite in form and broad in treatment.
Fig. 32. Half, Fig. 33. Half
Fig. 33 is more elaborate, but on much the same lines of design varied by having a larger space filled with groups of leaves. Fig. 34 gives the carving to a larger scale; in it the oak-leaves are shown with raised veins in the center, the others being merely indicated by the gouge hollows. There is some attempt in this at a more natural mode of treating the foliage. While such work is being carved, it is well to look now and then at the natural forms themselves (oak and laurel in this case) in order to note their characteristic features, and as a wholesome check on the dangers of mannerism.
It is a general axiom founded upon the evidence of past work, and a respect for the laws of construction in the carpenter's department, that when foliage appears in panels divided by plain spaces, it should never be made to look as if it grew from one panel into the other, with the suggestion of boughs passing behind the solid parts. This is a characteristic of Japanese work, and may, perhaps, be admirable when used in delicate painted decorations on a screen or other light furniture, but in carvings it disturbs the effect of solidity in the material, and serves no purpose which can not be attained in a much better way.
