Carving the Whittle Pup

Forming the face

We're going to take the first few steps in forming the dog's face here. Start by drawing a diagonal line on each side of the figure, from the nose line to the side line at the top. I call this the face line.

Then, make a stop cut along the nose line and, starting from the top of the figure, carve material away at a diagonal, going no deeper than the face line.

I start at the top and work my way down because it's easier to get the slope that way. It's much more difficult to carve up from the nose because the back of the blade will bump up against the nose and will cause the edge to "chatter" across the wood. That can damage the edge.

The idea here is to create a surface that slopes from the back of the nose to the top of the figure (which will be the ears), and that's slightly curved from left to right. The top part of the nose is as deep as the depth lines. At the top of the figure, there should be a gentle curve from one side line to the other.

Note that I took a moment to extend the center line again. It's a good idea to keep redrawing your guidelines as you go along. You'll be surprised how much that helps in keeping your carvings reasonably symmetrical.