Basic 2D Wood Carving

In this instructable I engraved a design into a piece of wood. I made this since I wanted to get into wood carving. I already draw a lot so I have a bit of an upper hand when it comes to art, but this was still a challenge. I didn’t do any crazy design since this is the first thing I’ve ever carved. I got the wood from my dad who was ecstatic because he had burned it with the Yakisugi method and knew it could come out defined and really pop when I carved into it. This project is more of a basic steps in preparation and what to look out for and not to do. I made lots of mistakes(hence the choppy-ness of it) and I want to make sure you don’t make the same ones.

For my supplies I used :

1. Pen sized dremel
2. wood carving kit
3. piece of wood
4. block of grindstone/sandpaper
5. pencil
6. !!!!!!!!SAFETY GLASSES!!!!!!!!

The first thing you should do is draw out a design on a separate paper, not on the wood yet. You don’t have to make it very detailed on the paper since you probably don’t want to spend all your time on the first step. My picture is very simple. It’s a cat, a moon and some stars.

After you have a design you like draw it onto the wood. You’ll have to use more pressure with the pencil depending on the shade of your wood.

dark wood=more pressure

light wood=less pressure

You Might not be able to see mine very well, I probably should have used a darker pencil from those fancy art kits every artist gets from family but never uses.

Now that your picture is done you can begin carving. I went around with my dremel first before using my other tools. For the actual carving part a used a square ended tool to get more off quicker without it being at an angle, but I used too much pressure and it snapped in half, I was almost blind so avoid that if yours are flimsy or wear safety glasses, I should’ve done that. The same thing happened two more times but no more close encounters like that.

If you’re up for it you can add some additional touches! Such as drawing stuff on with paint, pens, pencils, markers, sharpies etc. or take this step as an opportunity to clean up the edges or any pokey bits on the sides of your picture.

To avoid getting hurtful splinters and/or cuts, sand it down preferably outside to avoid those mini splinters from saw dust. Or just vacuum afterwards. I used a block of techni-edge grindstone that came with my little carving kit to sand mine. I sanded mine inside. I got in trouble and had to vacuum. Don’t follow in my footsteps.

And boom!

You’re all done, now you have this (probably) very cool piece of wood that you can put up for decor in your room or anywhere I guess. Maybe you could give it away to your family, mom, dad, grandparents etc. maybe even your cat. Now go clean up whatever mess you left behind while making this.

Now time to reflect(skip this if you’re not my teacher, it’s not necessary for you). This project was really enjoyable when my gear wasn’t flying at my face because I enjoy anything artsy. If I could change something it would probably be my design. I wish I had done something much cooler but alas, it is what it is. I would definitely re-do this project on my own time with less procrastination because there would be no deadline to wait a week before said deadline until I actually began working. When re-doing this project I would hopefully pick something really cool to draw and put more effort since I’d be able to stretch out working on it for years if I wanted. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this instructable and found it helpful.