Finding the "spirit" in the wood The creation of a Woody

Woodies begin life as simple boards or leafs of veneer. In the original version they were either resawn on a bandsaw and glued up as book matched panels and the veneer was glued to a substrate. Now I can photograph the individual boards and book match them in the computer. This allows me to create Woodies from wood that is being used on a project for someone else and I don't have to buy chunks of figured wood (VERY expensive).

Here is the step by step process for a couple of my Woodies. Some are almost perfect as they are and only require eyes or even the suggestion of eyes. I  don't really need the eyes, I can "see" the woodies without them. (May have something to do with the 70's) I only add the eyes to help less creative people to see the "spirit" in the wood.

More after the break.

The first step starts with finding a suitable board. A mirror helped when I was first starting but now I can just see which boards will work.  I like to flip the boards around and look at them to see how many different creatures I can find in the wood. The beauty of  digital Woodies is that I can find and create as many creatures as I want with just one board, very environmentally friendly .  All of my Woodies are available on my website as high quality digital prints and canvases.

Here is the blank for Woody 17.

First the board needs to be resawn and book matched, next it is glued back together to create a panel. When using wood I use a trick Luthiers use when making sound boards for guitars. 

Digitally it is just duplicated and flipped. 

This one is almost perfect and requires only eyes and a few enhanced lines to make me happy.

 Woody 17 completed.

This is Woody 42 created from the same wood. By just changing the book match you can see a different creature or "spirit" in the wood. By working digitally I can use the same wood many times and do my part by preserving this beautiful wood. Next I will show you how I do a more complicated Woody.