Using Woodcarving Workshops.tv
Whatever your preferred learning style, Woodcarving Workshops is easy to navigate and readily adaptable to suit your needs.
Below is an overview of how our website is organised, how you can engage with us and a curriculum I've created for beginning woodcarvers.
1. Finding your Way around the Woodcarving Workshops Video Library
Search by General Index
You will find a simple search box on the top left of the video pages.
Search by Lesson Category
The library of video lessons is divided into 9 categories: Tools & Equipment; Sharpening; Techniques; Carving Matters; Ornamental Carving; Relief Carving; In the Round Projects and Letter Carving. Click on the images and you can explore the categories.
Search by Woodcarving Topics
You can hunt for specific topics with the search box. Enter the subject you are interested in and all the relevant lessons will appear on your screen. We've done our best to tag the videos but this is by no means an exhaustive way of searching.
Note
You will notice that some of the videos appear more than once on the site. This happens when content is particularly relevant to more than one category and helps if you are hunting the topic. This is called 'mirroring' and doesn't affect the 'unique videos' number you see.
2. Comments, Feedback, Suggestions & Questions
Comments on Video Lessons
Use the area below each video to comment on that particular lesson. This is for public viewing and as such should be relevant to the video as well as other members.
Please avoid using the comment area to troubleshoot Internet issues that might be specific to your computer and service provider.Instead, check out our FAQ page and, if necessary, write to us.
Feedback & Suggestions for Woodcarving Workshops
We welcome these! Click here for our contact page, or write to us at info@woodcarvingworkshops.tv. Please be patient. We do our best to respond to all mail within a few days.
Questions
Many of the questions we receive have to do with computer glitches, most of which have nothing to do with the Woodcarving Workshops site and therefore are outside of our ability to correct.
There is a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page that you find through the Menu Tab, top of the page on the right. You are quite likely to find your answer there, so please check this out first.
If you can't find a suitable answer to your question in the FAQ page, by all means write to us at info@woodcavingworkshops.tv. We do our best to respond to all mail within a few days.
3. Beginners!
We've put together a page for beginners that will point you to lessons with good advice on setting up, initial practice and good projects with which to start.
You can download a printable copy here.
We also have a whole series of videos especially for beginners - you can watch the trailer here.
4. Members Gallery
Here in the Members Gallery you can showcase some of your own carvings. It's a great resource: browse through others work and be inspired! In most cases, if they have given permission, you can write to the carver with comments or questions, or just congratulations! Do join in; it's already a rich feast but, still: the more the merrier!
5. Monthly Blog
Every month Chris writes a blog on some aspect of woodcarving: adding thoughts to what appears in our video workshops; pulling out some important or thought-provoking aspect of your carving journey; or looking at some of the world's interesting carvings. Sometimes practical, sometimes more 'philosophic', you'll hear about them in your monthly bulletin and can catch up on all previous blogs here.
6. Further Reading
Chris has written quite a few books on various woodcarving matters. You can read about them on his own website here or, of course, find them to buy online.
They contain information that not only expands what we see here but often views it, or talks about it, from a differing perspective. Chris sees the lessons here and what he has written as complementary.
7. An Important Note from Chris
Occasionally, I get an email from someone who doesn't want to join this site because we don't have a project specifically on, say, ball-and-claw feet, or 'how to carve eyes'.
But that's missing something extremely important in the way I teach and present woodcarving to you: transferable skills.
Please don't think that because you don't see a specific subject, this site has little value for you!
What I'm showing you on this website are first-class, endlessly adaptable, woodcarving skills. I demonstrate these same, fundamental skills in different contexts and different projects, over and over again. Essentially, I think I only 'do' a few things - but I do them well and am able to adapt them to my ideas for woodcarvings. This is what I am really trying to give you.
It's impossible to please everyone with just the right project but here's an absolute fact: I use many of the techniques I would use on a ball-and-claw foot as I do on an eye - or an acanthus leaf, or a letter 'B'!
I'm very happy when you tackle one of these project because it inspires you, or feels like a good exercise. But I also want you to look carefully at what I'm doing; the step-by-step journey from wood to finished carving; how I handle the tools and how I cut the wood, and see how I adapt my core skills over and over. As you watch the projects, seek out these crucial skills, my method and approach. Think how you can adapt and transfer them to your own ideas.
That way you'll become your own master woodcarver.