Sheri Tharp

See No Evil: Animated Woodcarving Music Video

admin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:06:15 +0000

Hello Friends and Woodcarvers,
Ben and I just finished editing a new stop motion video of a carved wooden mask. Please check it out. It took 2 weeks of carving, 37,000 photos and a lot of patience. Enjoy.

I would love for you to “Like” it and write comments on YouTube. Pass it on to your friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social media if you would please. I would love to have it be seen.

Also if you haven’t yet it would be great if you could “like” both my Facebook page Sheri Tharp Woodcarving as well as Sheri Tharp Woodcarving Classes

Pumpkin Face Stop-Motion

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:58:48 +0000

We made a stop-motion pumpkin carving video with 1500 pictures.

Check out this video to see how we filmed the pumpkin animation.

Carving a mask from a board

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 20:35:20 +0000

I spend a lot of my time when I am not carving or teaching working in our cabinetmaking business. Several weeks ago we had purchased some 3/4 inch poplar for some paint grade cabinets that we were building. Poplar is a fairly soft wood that has an even grain and takes paint well. The sapwood is usually a light cream color and the heart wood is often a gray to green color and is not usually known for it’s beauty. On rare occasion you will find a piece with steaks of black, brown or purple in the heartwood. One of the boards was the most colorful piece of poplar that I had ever seen. I dragged it home and propped it up in my carving studio hoping that I could somehow come up with something to do with this fabulous board.

I sat and looked, wondering how to best utilize the wild and dramatic color and grain pattern. I finally decided to cut apart a plasticine mask to use to make pattern pieces. From the clay I made cardboard pattern pieces and then was able to place them on the board to best utilize the colors and make the best use of the wood.

After the pieces were cut out I decided that I liked the look of the pieces but thought that they were too thick. I re-sawed each piece so that I had 3/8” slices instead of 3/4”. I wanted the carved pieces to end up being loose or possibly put back together slightly misaligned. The pieces were then glued with hide glue so the face could be carved and then unglued.

The carving went fairly quickly since cutting to the pattern pieces left very little waste. After doing the finish sanding the whole thing was put into the sink with warm water to dissolve the hide glue.

I am now working on reassembling the whole thing. I found a package of gold foil used for bottling champagne that I had bought from East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. I am wrapping the back and edges just leaving the carved face showing and will then put it all the pieces back together.

Mosaic Winter: Stop Motion Animation

admin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:04:12 +0000

This stop motion animation is made from 13,000 still photos of me carving. I have been carving wood mosaic masks for 10 years. Although animating the mask made the work take much longer, we are very pleased with the end result.

Sheri Tharp is the woodcarver. http://www.sheritharp.com
A big thanks to William Ben Hamilton filmed and directed the animation. http://williambhamilton.com/

Music:
“Optimist (live)” by Zoe Keating. http://music.zoekeating.com
“Slightly Drifting” by Mercury Program. http://www.mercuryprogram.com/

Learning to carve faces: Resources for sculpting realistic faces

admin — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:07:39 +0000

When carving a face in wood you have to pay so much attention to carving the grain in the appropriate directions, which tools to use for the different areas, and how to remove wood smoothly. Because of those technical difficulties and the amount of time carving a full size mask or face in wood can take it can be very helpful to become more comfortable and proficient in sculpting faces by carving in materials that are less difficult to model. I have always done what I call three dimensional sketches for sculpture using Plasticine clay. It allows you to quickly work out design problems before going to the wood. These can be great aids in helping with the carving process.

I made these figures to be placed in flowers as gifts

I recently began making various size faces using polymer clay. I not only get lots of practice repeatedly forming faces but I have the added benefit of being able to bake them so they are permanent. I have found it to be really educational to form lots of faces of widely varying ethnicity and ages. In clay if you take too much off you can add it back so you can be far more aggressive taking away material if you have the option of putting it back. You can experiment with exaggerating features and expressions. Where is the point that an exaggerated feature turns a face into a cartoon? Just how far can you twist a mouth and have it still “read” mouth? How do you get a face to look peaceful, sad, or angry?

Here are a few resources that I rely on as reference resources:

Woodcarver and Doll maker Schuyler Ingle introduced me to Jodi Creager’s work.
“Sculpting the Head “ DVD by Creager Studio Workshop. This Video is great and walks you through making a realistic looking polymer head. They have a few excerpts on YouTube.

Here are two books on facial expression that I have found particularly helpful when carving faces.

Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists by Mark Simon. This book has people of various ages, 20 to 83, photographed from different angles with lots of exaggerated and varied expressions. There is also a great section showing close ups of the mouths of different models saying letter sounds.

“The Artist’s Complete Guide To Facial Expression” by Gary Faigin. This book has beautiful drawings and art examples of facial expressions. The author gives detailed descriptions of what happens to facial muscles and the very subtle differences that convey expressions.

FACES; Masks and figurative sculpture by Sheri

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:17:39 +0000

Some people are confused about the difference between the opening and my artist’s reception.
I hope I can clear up any confusion.

Important dates:

Opening: Friday, November 5th 6-9pm
My opening is taking place during an event called Oakland Art Murmur in which over 20 galleries are open for the evening.

Reception: Saturday, November 13, 6-9pm
My Reception is the following saturday and will be less crowded and more intimate.

Gallery hours: Saturdays Noon-6pm and by appointment
I would love it if you could come to my show before it ends.

Studio Quercus
385 26th Street
Oakland, California 94612
Map Directions
(510) 452-4670

The Next Generation of Carvers

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:54:07 +0000

In the past few months in the carving studio the young carvers have been really productive.
Here is some of their fabulous art work.

"Jig Saw Puzzle" by Sebastian, age 5. He colored and then cut out this wonderful puzzle. He loved using the scroll saw and got really good at making all of those tight turned cuts.

"Peg Doll" by Marli shown here with the final coat of finish and a hand sewn cotton dress. The doll was turned and carved from mahogany and has wood burned hair and a hand sewn dress. Marli made this as a birthday present for her four year old sister's birthday.

Giant Squid" by Sonny. This piece, carved from balsa wood, has leather tentacles. Sonny ground red iron oxide rock for the paint that gives the pieces it's great color and texture.

"Organic Robot" Seventh grader Colin, glued together small pieces of various hardwoods then carved, shaped and sanded it. A big part of the project was not the only the shaping of the pieces but also planning out how to join them altogether.

"Book box" by Grace. Grace finished her Book Box and you can see by the big smile that she is pretty happy about it. She is planning for her next project to be one that doesn't have quite so much sanding.

A Week in the life of a carving studio: Photoshoots, Animation, and Fire Cider

admin — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 06:20:05 +0000

This week has been a flurry of activities working to get ready for my Studio Quercus, November 5 show. Monday morning it was off to the the gallery on 26 street to measure and make a scale drawing of the space so I can plan the layout of my art. I was quite surprised at the transformation of the gallery into a Victorian-era parlor. On Friday October 1 the next show will open as:
Madame Lucretia’s Parlour: For the study of The Occult and the Macabre.

On Tuesday the carving studio was transformed into a photo studio. With the help and advise of woodcarver and photographer, Kelli Peacock, Ben and I set up a fabric “Photo Cube” and , spent the day photographing all of my completed art pieces. The white fabric cube diffuses the light so the you can control the light for great results in the picture quality. We had to make a black velvet fabric covered back and base to be able to hang my masks. It was a lot of work but I am very happy with the resulting pictures.

Wednesday was the regular woodcarving class but at the end of the day several of the long time carvers gathered to celebrate the Fall Equinox by preparing our autumn batch of Fire Cider. The carving bench was piled high with garlic, onion, horseradish, ginger, turmeric and hot peppers. We chopped, diced and each filled a gallon jar with our herbal mix. The jars were filled to the brim with apple cider vinegar, sealed and will brew for a month. The strained liquid is great for fighting off fall and winter colds and makes a delicious salad dressing. A recipe for Fire Cider can be found here.

The next transformation of my studio has been turning it into a stop motion animation studio. So on Thursday Ben and I set up to resume the filming of our next stop motion video. We set up lights, carving, and the camera and started to take the pictures. A few dozen shots in we discovered that the light coming through the window was changing as clouds were passing overhead. This was enough of a change in the light level that the flickering light made the mask appear to be “watching TV.” We rigged up an elaborate screen of black fabric completely around the bench that we were working on. This controlled the light. It is quite a challenge to carve half a cut, back out of the view of the camera, take a picture, then finish the cut, and repeat this for thousands of shots. Add to that difficulty having to watch for stray chips and flickering light and shadows. Our first results make us think it is paying off.

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks as we get ready for the show.

Brand New Site, My Art Show, and Student Lizard Art

admin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:27:10 +0000

Welcome to my new site.
This is a place for the exchange of woodcarving information, ideas and images.

I’ll be posting news from my woodcarving studio– letting you know what I’m creating and what my students are working on.
I will also pass along information that will be of interest to woodcarvers.

Your comments and input are welcome and appreciated.

Announcements:

I’m also excited to announce an upcoming show of my art in Oakland, CA from Friday, November 5, through Saturday, December 18, 2010.

"Braid Head" wood mask carved by woodcarver Sheri Tharp

Faces
Masks and figurative sculpture by Sheri Tharp

Studio Quercus
385 26th Street
Oakland, California 94612
(510) 452-4670

Friday, November 5 – Saturday, December 18, 2010

Gallery hours: Satudays Noon -6pm and by appointment
Opening : Friday, November 5th 6-9pm
Reception: Saturday, November 13, 6-9pm

Studio Quercus is part of the Oakland Art Murmur art gallery event that takes place on the first Friday of every month.

Please mark your calendars–
I’d love to see you there.

As the shows nears, you can expect to be hearing more from me.

Doug's Carved Basswood painted lizard Finished September 2010

Student Work:

This last Saturday at class we got to see Doug’s finished 3 foot long bass wood lizard that he finished carving and then painted at home. Shown here wandering in my garden, the lizard named “Yellow Toes of Texas” will live on Doug’s fence. As usual Doug surprises us all with his finished pieces.