Composition

By Jon Deck

Creating a well-lit, properly-focused image of adequate resolution means little if the scene you’ve shot is unclear to the viewer. The composition of your photo needs to communicate to your audience. This is especially true of photos in a step-by-step series that instructs a how-to message.

Choose your background carefully

Enough cannot be said about this basic element. More photos have been ruined by a poor choice of background than poor shooting skills. When it comes to a background, simpler is better. Avoid brash colors or patterns. Resist the temptation to shoot against carpeting or sheets. Fabrics are tough to control, and lines and creases never seem to disappear. Paper is the popular choice for amateurs and professionals alike. A trip to Amazon.com online will offer rolls of photo background paper in many colors, for a decent price. White should be your first choice, followed by a light neutral or gray. They ship in long rectangular boxes that you should keep to store your roll paper in between shoots.

Keep in mind what you’re shooting. If your subject is something small and shiny like jewelry, you can consider a textured background. A heavily textured piece, like a wood spirit, would photograph better on a smooth background. A chainsaw carving would be best shot outdoors than in a garage, unless you had a backdrop large enough to hold the entire carving. Then again, if outdoors means there’s an old car, a garden shed, or a chainlink fence behind it, then no. Be aware that the camera will see what is not apparent to you.

For a step-by-step series, shooting on roll paper may not be practical, especially if power tools are involved. I suggest you choose the best area of your shop to shoot in. If you need to, invest in a fresh piece of plywood for a clean benchtop, and remove any background distractions. Nobody wants to see how many tools, license plates, and calendars you have on your walls. A clean organized shop is a perfect background for your images.

Clean up your set area

I’ve often heard that a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. It’s quite true that any industrious person lives in a bit of clutter, but that has no place in a photo that is illustrating a phase of producing a project. Be sure that there is nothing in your set that distracts from the focus of the image and its message. Show only the tools and supplies used in the step that you’re capturing. Don’t let any items that are in your shot overpower the image—they are only props. If they provide too much clutter, remove them from the set or move them to a background position. Tidy up between scenes. If your first shot left a considerable amount of dust or woodchips, sweep them up before setting up the next scene. Keep your project the focus of the series from start to finish.

Demonstrating the procedure

A major flaw in many step-by-steps, is the lack of physical involvement of the craftsman. Many times the workpiece is shown in a series of photos of the project after each step has been accomplished. Although the progression is helpful, it’s far better to show the tools in use. Sometimes showing just how a tool is held to perform a task can make the difference in success or failure to the student of your images. Hands give scale to the project as well, showing if a project is handled in a palm or between fingertips. A Word About Hands… if you do show hands in a photo, make sure they are not a distraction in themselves. Make sure your hands are clean, with fingernails trimmed and cleaned. And if safety is an issue, make sure you’re wearing the proper gloves for the step you are illustrating. Hands can get in the way, obstructing the step they are performing. Be sure the camera sees the work that your hands are doing. Don’t try shooting alone, with your hands demonstrating a step (I speak from experience on this). You will never be satisfied with your photo. Better to get someone to shoot your hands in the process, or have someone who will be your hand model to sit in while you take the shot. If you’re working on machinery, it’s usually better to turn off the tool when taking the picture.

Whatever the procedure is, make sure the camera has the best angle to see the action. Clean, simple, meaningful images will create the best results for publishing.

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Didn’t get to vote? Click here to add your thoughts!

What do you think about Halloween? More than half of you like or love it!

Do you like to see Halloween projects in magazines? A whopping 85% said yes!

Would you like to see more or less Halloween content in magazines? Looks like we’re doing a good job.

Do you make Halloween projects for yourself or to sell? It’s all about you!

What kinds of Halloween projects are you looking for? Thanks for helping us plan!

The post Halloween Poll Results appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

You may have heard these tools referred to as “the world’s smallest chainsaws.” Watch as Woodcarving Illustrated magazine’s technical editor, Bob Duncan, and his assistant, Alex Giagnocavo, demonstrate and review chainsaw carving discs for angle grinders. Bob and Alex will demonstrate proper safety equipment and techniques, show the effectiveness of the discs on different types of wood, and decide whether bargain discs will do or it’s worth spending the money on the name-brand version.

Got a tool you’d like to see Bob and Alex review? Drop us a note at editors@woodcarvingillustrated.com to suggest it!

The post Chainsaw Carving Discs for Angle Grinders appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

Lighting

Temperature

This does not refer to the heat created by a bulb, but the hue or color of the light produced from a light source. The most common problem I find in a series of photos is that the color will shift dramatically from shot to shot. The culprit is the light (or lights) that illuminates your subject. All workshops have a variety of light sources. Overhead fluorescent and incandescent bulbs, halogen work lights, CFLs, and most recently LEDs can all reside in the same workspace. Each source creates a different value of light and can result in a green, yellow-orange or bluish cast to your photos. If there’s a window in your shop, you’re also dealing with natural light (which varies continuously). Unless it lets in enough light to shoot by, I would shade your window during photo sessions.

The best way to overcome these variances is to limit the light you’re shooting under to one type. When considering bulbs for your fixtures, look for their Kelvin measurement. A Kelvin value of 5000K or more will produce a cooler or bluish light. Bulbs with a 2700-3000K value produce warm light. Bulbs classified as “daylight” fall in the mid-range and produce a clean, more natural light. The goal is to have all your source lighting to share the same K-value.

Intensity and Direction

The amount of light cast onto your subject is a major factor affecting photo quality. I strongly suggest shooting by “available light” as your camera’s flash can cause unpredictable flaws (shadows and hot spots) in your images. Lighting that’s too harsh causes deep shadows and hot flares. Repositioning lights farther away from the subject and diffusing the light source will correct this problem. An image that’s dim with little contrast needs more light. You should choose a brighter light source (higher wattage) or add more lights. If your light falls off and doesn’t cover your entire subject, you need a broader light source. Many times another light is not necessary, but a white card or a card covered with aluminum foil (dull-side out) will kick light in from the main source. This can also be used to correct the shadow side of your subject and provide a fill light to lessen shadows and define edges.

The position of your lights affect highlights and shadows. Lower light positions cast longer shadows. Side lighting creates depth, while bringing the lights to the front will flatten the subject. If your subject is shiny or reflective in nature, you’ll want to pay close attention to the placement of the lights to minimize hard highlights and flares. When using multiple lights, make sure one is the dominant source and the other(s) are lesser. This will subdue cross-shadows under your subject and prevent the shot from looking flat.

Lighting Your Workshop Studio

Define an area in your shop to be camera-friendly, and outfit it with light sources of equal temperature. Choose a space large enough to accommodate the subject you intend to shoot and the lights needed to illuminate your set. Make your lighting fixtures as portable as possible. If your shop’s like mine, you can’t dedicate space for a full-time workshop studio. When you’re not shooting, you can stow your portable lights, and use your workbench for its original purpose. Also, at times you’ll need to shoot a subject in your shop which cannot be moved to your photo area (like a table saw). Take your photo lights there, and reduce any ambient light coming from other lights in the area to maintain the integrity of your shoot.

Homemade Photo Lights

If you’ve ever visited a professional photo studio, the one thing that staggers the amateur is the array of lighting equipment on display. You don’t need to invest thousands, or even hundreds of dollars on studio lights. The lights that can be built from inexpensive items found at any home improvement store will prove to be more than adequate. A great start is the clamp-on work lights with an attached aluminum reflector. These can be used as stand-alone fixtures, or provide the base for more specialized lighting, like a soft box. I’ve seen great tutorials on-line for building a good size soft box from one of these work lights, a Styrofoam ice chest, and a diffusing material. Diffusing material can be a translucent paper or cloth, such as waxed paper, tracing paper, cheesecloth or other lightweight white fabric (sheeting, sheer curtains, etc.). The bulbs should be a rather high wattage, but be aware of the heat they generate. Halogen work lamps produce a lot of light and usually require diffusion, but the heat from these lights make them hazardous to use as a confined light (like a soft box). If you need that much light and want to diffuse it, you can build a frame out of ¾” PVC pipe and fill the frame with a diffusion material. I learned from an on-line video that a fitted baby crib sheet will exactly fit onto a 2’ x 4’ frame. The other option is to point the halogen lamp away from your subject and bounce its light onto your set with a large white card. Either way, be sure there is an adequate margin of space between the card/diffuser and the halogen lamp.

With standard DIY electrical skills, you can build a dimmer box with a dimmer switch controlling an adjoining outlet that supplies power to your studio lights. This would allow you to dial in the exact amount of light you need from dimmable light sources (most fluorescents and many LEDs are not dimmable).

Light stands can be built from light framing lumber or PVC piping. If your set is small enough, you can construct a frame around the set area, and be able to clamp any number of lights or diffusers from it—from overhead or from either side. Make sure your studio has plenty of spring clamps in various sizes to secure your lights to frames or stands.

The post Photo Tips: Lighting appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

This is your chance to show it off—and maybe collect some cash!

Presenting the 2016 Woodcarving Illustrated People’s Choice Awards.

Entries are being accepted until June 15, 2016 for: Ornaments – Painted and Unpainted.

New This Year:

• Instead of one big contest, we’ll be running small contests all year, one or two categories at a time. You’ll know the deadlines ahead of time and be able to plan your entries in advance.
• Cash prizes! Winners in each category will receive $50 for first place, $30 for second place, and $20 for third place.

How It Works:

• Submit as many entries as you like during the entry period for the each contest—it’s always free to enter! Then, the staff of Woodcarving Illustrated will choose up to 10 designs in each category.
• The Editors’ Choice Award winners will be posted on our website to compete for the People’s Choice Awards via public voting. Vote for your favorites, and share the contest with your friends so they can vote, too!
• The People’s Choice Award winners will be published in Woodcarving Illustrated and announced on the magazine website. We’ll send those cash prizes and a nice certificate for your wall.
• Plus! All entries will be considered for possible paid publication as projects in Woodcarving Illustrated.

Categories and Deadlines:

The theme for the fourth contest is Ornaments: Painted & Unpainted. We’re looking for your best ideas and projects.

Entry Information:

• Please send one high-resolution or professionally printed photo of your entry, along with the following information: Category (Ornaments Painted OR Ornaments Unpainted), carving name, size, type of wood, tools (hand vs. power), and story/inspiration, if any. Also, include your name, address, and e-mail address. If you do not have e-mail, include a phone number instead. See the Rules for important entry details (visit online, or send an SASE to request a printed copy).

• E-mail your entries to: editors@woodcarvingillustrated.com with a subject of “WCI Contest.” Or, mail to: WCI Contest, Fox Chapel Publishing, 1970 Broad St., East Petersburg PA 17520. Entries must be received by June 15, 2016.

• All entries must be original designs created by the entrant. They cannot be made from, inspired by, or variations of anyone else’s pattern or roughout; they cannot be class projects; no one else can have helped with the carving. By entering, you verify that your entry is your own creation.

The post Call for Entries – Peoples Choice Awards – Ornaments, Painted and Unpainted appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

Congress is sponsored by Affiliated Wood Carvers, Ltd., and held each June at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Maquoketa, Iowa. You still have time to register for the event or send pieces to compete. Visit the Congress website, www.awcltd.org, for more information.

Check out our gallery of photos celebrating half a century of this amazing show. Special thanks to Marc Featherly and Dick Belcher for providing images.

Click image to see full size image.

The post Club News: International Woodcarvers Congress: “A Woodcarving Experience Like No Other” appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

By the 1980s, however, Harley noticed that there weren’t as many carvings available for sale in Scandinavia. He had taught himself (and others) to emulate Döderhultarn’s simple, almost impressionistic, style of storytelling in wood, but it appeared that no one was teaching Norwegians to carve their own folk art. Harley pursued the idea when he and his family moved to Norway in 1988 so he could attend graduate school. Upon discovering that no one was teaching figure carving in either Norway or Sweden, Harley did it himself. It was the first of many classes; Harley taught so many Norwegians how to carve, in fact, that he was awarded the St. Olav’s Medal from the King of Norway in recognition of his contributions to Norwegian folk art. He was named the 2012 Woodcarver of the Year by Woodcarving Illustrated magazine for both reviving the art of flat-plane carving and teaching it across the United States and around the world. His work has been featured on numerous radio and television programs, including the PBS Peabody Award-winning series “Craft in America.”

And, Harley literally wrote the book. Several of them. He tells the story of Scandinavian flat-plane carving—and, really, the history of all caricature carving—in his book, Scandinavian Figure Carvings: From the Viking Era to Döderhultarn, Trygg, and Modern Carvers. He provides several step-by-step projects and scores of patterns in Carving Flat-Plane Style Caricatures. Material from both books has been published before, but both have been updated with new material, including extensive photos, maps, event calendars, and more.

Meet Harley and hear him speak about Scandinavian flat-plane carving at the 2016 Fox Chapel Publishing Open House and Woodworking Show on May 13-14, 2016 in Lancaster, Pa. Click here for details.

Want to learn flat-plane carving?

Take a rare public class from Harley at Fox Headquarters on May 16-18. You’ll finish and paint at least one carving; some carvers manage two or three. Click here for details or tickets.

The post Book Corner: Author Harley Refsal appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

By Jon Deck

In this age of digital manipulation, the computer can enhance and correct images in many ways. However, there’s no software program that can sharpen an image that is out of focus. The only way to assure a crisp image is to take one.

Almost every digital camera has an auto-focus. When the auto-focus is on, a red box will appear in your preview screen. Before you take your shot, depress the shutter button about halfway, and the auto-focus will engage (you can hear the lens making adjustments in some cameras). When the red box turns green the scene is focused—press the shutter the rest of the way and take the shot. I use auto-focus on our house camera, and it serves me well.

That said, there are some nuances to the auto-focus:

1. The camera is trying to focus on your subject. If there is something else in your scene that is closer or more well lit, it may be focusing on that item—and rendering your subject out of focus. Sometimes a little shift in camera position can override the focal point.

2. Also, on most cameras, you can move the red focus box on the preview screen up/down/left/right using the 5-way button usually situated to the right of the preview screen. This allows you to choose the focal point in your shot.

Another thing that can cause soft focus is being too close to your subject. The best thing to do is back off a bit, and zoom into your subject. This will also help if you encounter depth of field issues, where focusing on an item in the foreground renders an item in the background in softer focus, or vice versa. Backing off your subject to gain better focus should not require a large amount of zoom. Note that cameras have an optical zoom and a digital zoom. An optical zoom refers to the magnification that can be achieved by the physical lens of the camera. Digital zoom is a further magnification by interpolation of the image, and can lessen picture quality.

Make sure your subject is well lit. That will help assure better focus as well. The last thing that can affect image clarity is camera movement.

If the camera is jostled when the shutter is snapped, that slight movement can cause a motion blur. Practice staying as still as possible through the camera capture. Remember too, that the further you are zoomed in to a subject, the harder it is the keep the image still. A tripod can help cut any camera motion completely.

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Transform an ugly pine plate into a pretty piece of pyrography

By Jo Schwartz

Pine is great for many craft projects, but it is not ideal for pyrography. Its grain alternates between being very hard and very soft, and becomes sappy in spots when subjected to heat. However, you might have a pine blank lying around that you purchased before you learned better, or maybe a friend or family member, knowing you’re “doing that burning thing,” gave one to you. Go dig it out of your stash—I’ll show you how to work with the grain to create interesting and attractive patterns.

The name “frog eye” came from two sources: the tape I used to section the plate and the half-circles in the design, which look like frogs eyes’.

Burning the Plate

TIP: Shading

I always begin shading on the left side and slide the point to the right. (Left-handed people may choose the opposite way.) On the straight lines in this piece, I begin at the top-left edge and burn all the way around. Then, I turn the wood so that I can begin again at the top-left edge and join that shading to the completed edge. This is easy and helps create a dimensional effect in the shaded spaces.

Materials:
Pine plate: 14″ (35.6cm) dia.
Painter’s tape, such as FrogTape: 1-1/2″ (3.8cm) wide
Basic pyro kit (see the spring 2016 special issue of Pyrography for more information)

Tools:
Woodburner, such as Walnut Hollow with points: writing, angled cutter

For more pyrography inspiration, check out Pyrography Spring 2016.

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The post Pyrography Frog Eye Plate appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.

Read about new artists, learn new spins on old techniques, and get some great new design ideas. Even if you’ve never woodburned anything before, if you peek at this issue you will want to give pyrography a try.

–> ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY <–

or pick it up at your local arts and crafts store

.SNEAK PEEK

Be sure to check out this FREE pyrography project:
Frog Eye Plate Saves the Day

Check out this gallery of the great things you’ll find inside this special issue:

–> ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY <–

or pick it up at your local arts and crafts store

And don’t forget to check out this FREE pyrography project:
Frog Eye Plate Saves the Day

The post The Spring 2016 Pyrography Special Issue is Available Now! appeared first on Woodcarving Illustrated.