Choose Your Gnome - Simple Beginner Friendly Woodcarving Tutorial For any Season

Hey guys, Doug here again with another super simple wood carving project. When I say super simple, I'm talking this is the starting point. So if you're new to carving, or just getting into carving, or just want to have fun carving, this is going to be a real fun little project for you. It's one of those ones that after you learn the basic few cuts, you can make it whatever you want. And I've got some examples here. I think I should call this video Gnome for the Holidays, pretty cheesy, but basically the bottoms are all the same, and I changed the hat, so we've got a pilgrim, we've got a little bunny hat, we've got a santa, we've got a leprechaun, and we've got a wizard to cover all the holidays. And also, if there's something again in your life that you want to incorporate, change it up. But it's basically the most basic of wood carving that you can do, and it's fun. Now, if you are new to wood carving, I have a whole playlist of getting started, what kind of cuts, what kind of wood, you know, homework projects, and safety, and everything you need to know. There will be a playlist in the description for any of the questions to get going. But basically, this is what we're making. Some variation of this, and like I said, very simple, very easy. I'm going to call this basic level, because I think I'd like to revisit some of these in the future at a more intermediate level, and give them more details. But for now, we're sticking with this, and it's going to be quick and simple. What we're using is a piece of basswood, inch and a half square by four inches tall, and I'm just using my knife again. This is a, I think it's an inch and seven-eighths OCC tool. But the best knife is the one that's in your hand, so let's put this stuff away and get carving. All right, well we've got our block of wood here, and let's just mark from the bottom up. We're going to go inch and a half. That's just an inch and a half from the bottom, and just come down about a half an inch. Give or take, whatever you want. That just gives enough room for the hat. But that's all we're going to measure, that's it. So we're just marking a nose, basically. We want that nose to stick out, so I'm just going to make a little stop cut, all right? So we're setting in the nose, same thing, just a little stop cut in the bottom, and our nose is in place. There we go, that's the basic right there, one nose. So we'll just angle those bottom cuts with little stop cuts, and a little bit on the top, okay? So depending on what we're going to do, so it is coming into March, so let's go with this guy. Whoops. Let's go with the leprechaun-looking fella, all right? So take the sharp points off the nose, just round it over, and we're going to dig that in a little bit deeper later, but we're going to go with the leprechaun. That nose is the bottom of the hat, so we want to have a little bit of an angle coming around to the back corner. Let's go, if that's an inch and a half, inch and three-eighths, you know, inch and a quarter in the back, all right? And we're just going to draw a line just so that hat sits on a bit of an angle like that, all right? But regardless, before that, let's just knock all the corners off, all right? All the corners we can just slice off, cutting away from yourself. Watch this, when I go up, it's going to probably split, see how that splits? So you know when you have a split, you're just going to go the other way, and you get a cleaner cut, but regardless, in this stage, it doesn't make any difference if it splits or not. We're just removing some wood, all right? Now some of you are saying, my knife doesn't cut like yours, or my wood is harder, and that's fine. You have the advantage of not making the video, and just take your time, and take smaller cuts. It's okay. All right? There. We basically rounded the, took all the sharp edges off. Before we get too far, let's just kind of mark a halfway center, it doesn't really matter. And then we got our little line around here, so we're just going to make some little stop cuts. The bottom of the hat is going to be fairly flat, all right? Just bring that knife around like so, come up to it, just setting in the bottom of the hat. Like I said, this is a quick and easy little, fun little woodling project, all right? Like I said, if you're unfamiliar about the cuts and the cutting habits one should have, I do have a playlist which will get you going, and it'll tell you to wear a carving glove so that you don't cut yourself, but the main thing is keep your fingers out of the way. So we've kind of roughed in the bottom of the hat, but I really want, you can see the beard and the head, we really want to bring that down under the hat. So what we're going to do is just about halfway, we're just going to angle the whole body just up to the hat, about halfway. We want to try and catch all those little areas that are the exterior wood that hasn't been cut. We want every bit of our wood cut, all right? Taking off all of the, if you keep a clean carving, it's a lot less work to clean up after too, all right? So we kind of got a little bit of a shape from the middle under the hat. The same thing down now, all right? Just rounding it all around, equal, if it helps you, you can just draw like a circle on the bottom, just in a little bit, but you can probably eyeball it, this is good. Just working our way around, and you can see we're creating a little center high point which we'll smooth out after, there we go. So if we want it a little bit rounder, especially when you're looking at it head on, we'll just take a little bit more up and give it a little bit more shape. Look at it and say, okay, that side's a little bit better than this side, so we'll go over this side, make sure the same is on the back, and there we go, we're getting there, right? And we can just go around the bottom and get around that too. You know, it's so fun to do simple little projects. All right, so I think we're pretty well happy with that, like I said, a little bit around the nose area that we got to clean up, but we want to get that nose a little bit deeper, so I'm just going to take my knife and do the same on both sides, cutting flat, so we're not digging under the nose, we're just coming up the sides of the nose, just kind of bring it around, that's a nice cut there, let's cut it up, all right, I'm trying to look over the camera, so a little bit harder, but just going to round that nose a little bit more, we're not too concerned about an actual nose shape, just make a little round little bulbous nose for the bottom, we didn't really touch that, so get right underneath there, don't be afraid to take some wood away, the more you take off, the bigger the nose, the better the nose, all right, and just kind of look at it, make sure it's fairly even, all right, now the whole point of these no-seam faces is there are supposed to be eyes, and like I said, in the more advanced ones, we're going to have the hat like really hooking around that nose, and like setting over, but for now, we're just going to pretend that we have eyes in here, just going to put a little three-corner cut in here, you see that, that way, I'm going to go this way again, we're just going to create a real shadow for where the eyes would be, same on the other side, just like the eyes are hiding under the hat or under the hair, okay, all right, let's go to the brim of the hat now, now you can see that brim, so I want to go a little bit, I'll probably go almost a quarter of an inch, probably a quarter inch at the back, and I'm going to make this a little bit thicker than you would think to start with, because that becomes a very, very brittle, easy breaking point, so we're going to keep it fairly thick, and we'll just work our way around, do that all around, this is very, these are very initial cuts, we're going to come back a few times before we're done, so remove the wood, it was fun, I found so many ideas that I wanted to do, I thought, you know what, I did five, five will, should spark your imagination, but all kinds of fun stuff, different types of gnomes, and valentines, and Vikings, and all kinds of stuff, so like I said, I did five, I thought five is good enough, but there's so many ideas out there, I was kind of taking the top edge off of that, trying to keep it all look fairly uniform, now we know that our hat is a big, whatever kind of hat you call it, like a stovepipe hat, or whatever, if that is angled, that means the top should be angled too, right, so you can do it now, or we can do it later, might as well just do it now, get that, it's a good test for your knife too, when you're cutting end grain, if you start seeing any white scratches on your wood, probably time to strop, I stropped this knife just, well right before I made the video, or started the video, so she's, she's in good shape, I'm going to remove a lot of this wood still along the edges, so now let's make that uniform all the way up, like I said, it's going to split in some, some directions, don't worry about it, unless it's going too deep, you can clean that up with another cut, or by going the other way, all right, now let's bring that, see that we have that there, bring that back down, right down to the brim again, you can see I'm pulling that with my thumb, so I'm not, my fingers are never in any danger of being cut, as long as I'm using the force from my own fingers to push, it's not like I'm wailing on it, right, so there's our rough setup, I'm trying to make it a little more uniform, that's a, it's a very tall hat, it lends itself better possibly to like a, like a gnome type hat for the size, so if you only had a shorter piece, you can have a shorter hat, it don't matter, all right, all right, he says, he's always stopping, looking around at the carving, I'll get his little pull, okay, we're good, we're doing fine, like I said, take your time, make smaller cuts, but I want this video not to be long and boring, fun and quick, all right, let's stop, let's take these sharp edges off the top of the hat, if you want to get really creative, you can put some, what do you call them, clovers, clover leaves and whatnot in the hat, we're not going to get carried away here, but we are going to put a buckle on it, let's make a buckle, because there's two of these here, I have a buckle, we've got a buckle on old Mr. Pilgrim and a buckle on the, buckle on the leprechaun, so what's a buckle, a buckle is basically a rectangle on the hat, big hat, big buckle, all right, now we're going to do the buckle first, because the strap is going to come into it, so if we cut that down, down, across, now we can cut against those cuts, keeping that buckle straight and square, come down, slide right beside that cut, you know where the tip of your knife is, in here, slide down, hope you don't make a too gross of a cut against there, I'm just going in deep enough to set that, set it off the hat, see that, all right, a little square in the middle, cut, cut, just kind of sticking the tip of my knife in, all right, now we're just going to pop those insides out, go the other way, and the other, okay, if you want to put a little edge on there, you can, double off the inside, all right, and same all around, this gives a little bit more, a little more detail, all right, there's the buckle of the strap, but now we're just going to stay a little bit lower than that, we'll just run it around, that's going to run around the hat, now, you know, I should mention to you right away too, that a v-tool is a very handy tool to have, and you could just run your v-tool right around there, and you'd have your, your hat set in place, but same thing, just leaving a reveal, just an edge, a nice paint edge, really, just so we can differentiate the belt, strap, belt, what do you call it, hat band, hat band, that's what we're going to say, hat band, all right, I would say something like this rivals that, that Tom Hines five-minute wizard, that very popular video on my channel, for ease, in fact, it might even be easier, there's not even eyes, it's just a round, a round nose, and back to the buckle, maybe a little cut here, just a little stop cut, there we go, and if you want to go around and just kind of bevel that edge of the band, make it look a little bit cleaner, do that, take off your pencil line, yeah, if you got all day, it would be kind of fun to, you know, put a little shamrock or something in there, this hat is kind of goofy looking, bring it all down in one stroke, when you're working the top and then you're working the bottom, you've got a little bow in the center, so let's pull it down, all right, well, that's where we're at, pretty simple, I'm just going to scoop a little bit, that chatter noise is not a healthy noise, you don't want to hear that, you're asking too much of your knife, a little bit in the front, now, for the whiskers themselves, I've used a few different things, from doing absolutely nothing, to a gouge, to a v-tool, give me one second here and I'll show you all that stuff, but we can, we can take that brim, if we want to, if we're not happy with it, we can, we can round that up to the hat band, make it look a little bit thinner, because it's pretty, pretty hefty right now, there we go, just like so, and if we think that the, it's not round enough, we can round it out a bit, anyway, if you're carving, you can do whatever you like with it, but all right, that's where we're at with our, our guy here, maybe I'll take a, maybe I'll take the eyes in just a little bit more, a little bit more, I want just a little bit more shadow in there, a little deeper, there we go, let's make that little chip cutter there, separate the nose from the hat a little bit, there we go, make sure we're happy with the shape, but overall, that's the, that's the nuts and bolts of the, the operation here, now let me show you, Mr. Wizard here has nothing, no, uh, no, uh, whisker marks at all, pilgrim, he's got a soft, soft v-tool, all right, Santa Claus has a, I think a number 11 gouge, let's see, it has even a larger gouge, probably a number five or seven, and a sharper v-tool on this guy, so like I said, you can, you can stop right there, and if you paint it, you know, the more, just like on the penguin, we talked about the, the more facets, the more, uh, the more facets, like meaning knife cuts, the more detail when you paint, so you can go around and make sure you've got oodles of, uh, little cuts, little facets, or you can take, uh, let me just grab something here, let me grab, uh, let me grab something smaller, grab a number nine, actually, number nine, and again, not necessary, you can use a v-tool gouge, but I just gouge like that, the idea is that he's basically all hair, right, so I'm just taking some little gouges out of here, kind of, uh, the front, at least, we're going to give a mustache, uh, dimension to it, so we're kind of coming off the nose, right, it's like this guy has not shaved for, or cut his hair for a very, very long time, so now that I've started it, I guess I'm going to finish it, but like I said, you don't have to, you can use your knife to, uh, you know, v-cuts with your knife, you want to do v-cuts, you just use your knife, I probably should have done that for you guys, just done it all v-cuts, but that's all you need to do, right, just to take, uh, the whiskers, right, but if you have a v-tool, that's a v-tool, right, but I started with the gouge, so I guess I'll finish with the gouge, but let me, uh, you got the gist of it, anyway, I'll probably straighten it up a little bit at the back, but we've got that direction for a mustache, so let me finish this up, give it a once over, and, uh, we'll come back. I'm just spraying this, uh, guy down with some water, it's a little Gene Messer trick that, uh, I can still do it for a while, but, uh, I'm only doing this just to, uh, to highlight the carving, you can see it what it would look like oiled, and, uh, it gives you some better, better detail, better shadows, and, uh, yeah, but I went over him really quick, made sure there's no little, uh, snots or little, little, uh, fuzzies here or there, and, uh, that's about it, not much to it, kind of wish now that I had, uh, used the knife to make the V's as a V tool, because I said I was just gonna use my knife, and someone's already typing, or you said you're just gonna use your knife, but anyway, it's what it is, and, uh, yeah, but like I said, a few simple cuts, and, uh, you got something, and these, I mean, I don't care how experienced you are, this is just a fun little carving, and, uh, it's one of those ones that, uh, you're not afraid to give it away either, doesn't, it doesn't hurt as much to give it away, so there you have it, there is our little, little, uh, no-seam gnome in the, uh, in the leprechaun mode, but have fun with it, I'm just gonna probably paint it up just with some, uh, craft store acrylics, water it down pretty good, so that there's more of a stain, and, uh, just layer it on there, and you can, you can do the linseed oil trick first, and let it dry just to seal a little bit for a smoother, uh, paint, but, you know, it doesn't really matter, just paint her up, and, uh, like I said, cheap craft store acrylics work just fine, and, uh, there you go, have fun with it, big thanks to everyone who bought me a coffee since the last video, always appreciate that, and, uh, yeah, I think I'll probably take a break from the simple, uh, carvings for a little bit, and, uh, maybe do something else for a little bit, but we'll be back, and we'll revisit this down the road, because I think we can make it so much better, and if you are in the mood, if this is a leprechaun season for you, I do have a little bit more detailed leprechaun, uh, oh, I have a tutorial on this guy on my channel, so there you go, all right, that's it, I'm done, fun project, have fun, make carving fun, and, uh, see you next time, thanks for watching.