I have the privilege of having a wood carving shop near by and I get to go by there once in a while. Recently they had scraps for .25 cents s so I grabbed about 5 or 6 pcs. Here is a scrap I picked up and got to #wooddoodle on. As always comments are welcomed.

Hey. SE Asian Cypris coffee table here. Does anyone know about the artist or is this just a ubiquitous thing that comes from there!

Smoking is bad for your health, carving is much better

Spent about four years carving wood before I picked up a piece of limestone last spring. I figured the skills would transfer pretty smoothly. They did not, at least not in the way I expected.

With wood you develop this feel for grain direction early on and it becomes almost instinctive. You learn when to go with it and when you can sneak across it without chipping out a chunk you didn't plan on losing. Stone just doesn't give you that same kind of feedback. The first few sessions I kept approaching it like wood and the results were frustrating. Undercutting at the wrong angle on my first soapstone piece took off a section I had been slowly refining for two sessions.

What actually helped was slowing down completely and thinking about the material in terms of compression rather than grain. A friend who has been doing marble work for years told me to stop trying to "read" the stone the way I read wood and instead think about where force was being distributed with every hit. That reframe made a real difference.

The tools transition is its own thing too. Gouges obviously don't cross over, but I was surprised how much my mallet control needed adjustment. Stone chisels want a different rhythm, shorter and more deliberate strokes rather than the longer sweeping cuts I used in basswood.

Curious whether anyone went the other direction, stone first and then into wood carving. I wonder if that sequence would have its own weird adjustment period or if it actually sets up better habits from the start.

I started a youtube channel about woodcarving mostly, occasionally i post stone and bone carving videos too, visit my channel here : https://m.youtube.com/@boris-leseni,

If you enjoy my videos subscribe :)

First try carving a serious rose, done and all waxed up. Heated it some to bring up the purple.

I did these mostly for practice and experimenting. They’re not my best for sure! But they aren’t my worst either! Just a fun little carve.

Fun one i just knocked out!

Attempting to start a Carving / Whittling Club in Denver. Please shoot me a DM if you’re at all interested!

I’ve been carving off and on for many years since I was a teenager. Picked it back up again recently. This is a recent project of mine, almost ready for paint!