How to Carve Faces in Wood
How to Carve Faces in Wood
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Helpful advice, including guidance on using tools, carving head, wear, and hair, and carving to resemble the shape of skin and muscles under the skin. Carving a wooden face is often daunting to a new wood carver, but by learning the correct technique and skills, you can quickly become skilled at it. There are many styles and methods available depending on the result you expect, and the level of realism you expect from your finished piece.
Helpful advice, including guidance on using tools, carving head, wear, and hair, and carving to resemble the shape of skin and muscles under the skin. Carving a wooden face is often daunting to a new wood carver, but by learning the correct technique and skills, you can quickly become skilled at it. There are many styles and methods available depending on the result you expect, and the level of realism you expect from your finished piece.
A face says so much; it tells a story before a single word is spoken. That’s why it’s so important for a carver to learn the art of carving faces. In fact, I’ve never met a woodcarver who didn’t secretly (or not so secretly) want to master faces. After all, a well-carved face can bring a block of wood to life.
Now, I’ll be honest, reading this article won’t turn you into a master face carver overnight. If it did, I’d be out of a job. But you will pick up a few tips that might make your next face look a little more human, and a little less like something that escaped from a Halloween decoration.
The first thing to realize is that faces can be carved at many distinct levels of realism. Some carvers aim for the kind of face that looks like it might blink if you stare too long, while others prefer stylized or exaggerated features. The face to the right, for example, leans toward the realistic side. The eyeballs aren’t perfectly round; they’re quite flat, but that’s part of the trick. Perfectly round eyeballs would make your figure look startled or cartoonish, while flatter ones give it a calmer, more natural look.
Most professional carvers eventually develop a few “go-to” faces, familiar friends, you might say, that they use again and again. Each new carving may seem unique, with its own expression, mood, or quirk, but the underlying face is often the same. It’s a signature of sorts, a calling card in wood. You can look at a dozen carvings by the same artist and know immediately who made them, just by the curve of a cheek or the shape of a smile.
So, whether you’re carving a saint, a sailor, or a mischievous old man, remember this: every face you carve carries a bit of you in it. The more faces you carve, the more they’ll start to look back at you, not just with eyes, but with personality. And when that happens, congratulations, you’ve learned to breathe life into wood.
I thought I’d take a moment to share how I go about laying out the faces I carve. There’s no mystery to it, really, just a bit of planning, a few basic tools, and a reliable guide known as the Rule of Thirds.
This rule, which artists and sculptors have used for centuries, divides the face into three equal sections. Think of it as a roadmap for proportion. By following it, you’ll find your carvings start to look more natural and balanced, less like guesswork, and more like art.
I begin by grabbing my trusty set of dividers. You could use a ruler, of course, but dividers make life a lot easier when you’re working on a three-dimensional surface. The first measurement I take is the length of the nose, from the base of the nose up to the beginning of the brow line. That measurement becomes my unit of proportion.
Using that same length, I mark two more equal sections: one from the brow line to the bottom of the nose, and another from the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin. These three zones, hairline to brow, brow to nose, and nose to chin, form the framework of the face.
Now, it’s worth noting that the top of the head actually extends a bit higher than the hairline. The hairline is just that, a line where the hair begins, not where the skull ends.
Once I’ve set these main proportions, I locate the mouth, which sits about halfway between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin. As for the width of the nose, it conveniently aligns with the inner corners of the eyes. These small relationships make all the difference in achieving a believable, well-proportioned face.
When you lay out a carving this way, the rest of the work starts to flow. The features fall naturally into place, and your carved faces begin to take on a sense of harmony and life. It’s a simple system, but like all good rules in art, it gives you just enough structure to let creativity thrive.
Caricature Carving: An Introduction
Whenever I talk with other carvers about faces, I always find myself coming back to what I call the “rules.” These aren’t rigid laws carved in stone, but rather time-tested guidelines, principles that help a face look believable and alive. They deal with the placement of features and the subtle ways to shape them so that a carved face feels natural, not forced.
I love sharing these rules with others, especially new carvers. Understanding where to place the eyes, how to angle the nose, or how deep to set the mouth can make the difference between a face that looks flat and one that seems to have a story to tell. Once you learn these fundamentals, you start to see faces everywhere, in the grain of the wood, in shadows, even in your coffee steam on a cold morning.
Over the years, I’ve wandered away from faces now and then to carve something different, a bird here, a whimsical figure there, but I always find myself returning to them. There’s something endlessly fascinating about the human face. Each one is unique, yet all share the same structure, the same spark. And every time I carve one, I learn something new, not just about the craft, but about expression, character, and life itself.
Whenever I talk with other carvers about faces, I always find myself coming back to what I call the “rules.” These aren’t rigid laws carved in stone, but rather time-tested guidelines, principles that help a face look believable and alive. They deal with the placement of features and the subtle ways to shape them so that a carved face feels natural, not forced.
I love sharing these rules with others, especially new carvers. Understanding where to place the eyes, how to angle the nose, or how deep to set the mouth can make the difference between a face that looks flat and one that seems to have a story to tell. Once you learn these fundamentals, you start to see faces everywhere, in the grain of the wood, in shadows, even in your coffee steam on a cold morning.
Over the years, I’ve wandered away from faces now and then to carve something different, a bird here, a whimsical figure there, but I always find myself returning to them. There’s something endlessly fascinating about the human face. Each one is unique, yet all share the same structure, the same spark. And every time I carve one, I learn something new, not just about the craft, but about expression, character, and life itself.
For carvers, the Wood Spirit is a wonderful theme to use for experimentation with new techniques and image ideas. These delightful little creatures come in an unlimited variety of shapes, styles, and forms. You will find Wood Spirits used as cane handle ornamentation, free-standing statues, and even wall hangings. Wood Spirits combine the human face and nature into one image. Flowing hair may turn into autumn leaves, or a beard may blend into the texture of the tree bark. The physical features of the face become exaggerated. Noses can be long and narrow, taking up over three-fourths of the facial area, or they may be broad and flat, spanning deeply toward the cheek and jaw line. Eyebrows can arch high into the
forehead and become willow leaves.
The ship's figurehead. There is a certain magic about a figurehead which has never entirely faded. A ship without a figurehead was like a ship without a sail, making the figurehead a lasting symbol of the ship's permanence. Of all the objects made by man, the ship almost achieves a life of its own. When considering a figurehead, therefore, it is important to remember the ship that bore her. The ships have gone, but these wooden angels remain to tell their tales to those who care to listen. The carver's shop of old was located in a discarded sail or mold loft, often upstairs, so that he could rub elbows constantly with shipbuilding folk keeping abreast of activities on the wharf. He lived among those who went to sea and those who built and equipped vessels. The window of the workshop usually looked out over the water.
Carving faces from wood is an enjoyable pastime for carvers of all experience and skill levels. Beginners can acquire the necessary skills required to fashion a face from a block of wood with a little patience and a lot of practice. The art and craft of carving masks and three-dimensional faces out of wood is a time-honored tradition in the United States and around the world. Some notable examples include Iroquois False Face Society carvings and the semi-abstract masks made by African tribal woodcarvers.
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