Hen Relief Column
By Lora S. Irish
I was carving the hen board and really got carried away with the detailing.I had meant the piece to be a simple, fairly smooth, folk art styled piece but I, as always, just had to fuss it up a bit…a real big bit. To make the design stand out, I added color.
Because the Hen Board is carved on 3/4″-thick basswood the layer work is quite shallow between the individual levels. Carve just enough from each area to tuck it under the adjacent area. The layers pattern shows the design worked with the highest layer in the palest tone with lower layers in darker tones.
The deepest carved area of the project is the space between the wood slats in the nesting box.These were carved to about a 1/2″ depth. The highest areas were simply rolled over along the edge of the area then detailed. One area of the design, the wheat stalk under the hen’s eggs tapers from the highest layer near the eggs to the level of the rooster’s back tail feathers.
CLICK HERE to download the lines pattern.
CLICK HERE to download the detail pattern.
CLICK HERE to download the layers pattern.
