Carved from basswood, about three inches tall, pattern taken from Gary Batte’s book, Carving Crazy Critters.

Al went to my mom, who collects alligators.

The dog started out as a branch on an elm tree in the yard.  It was part of the big limb that the wind took down last spring.  Finish is nothing fancy:  just the Howard Feed ‘N Wax that I use on most of my found wood carvings.

Makes for a cool looking little dog figure, too.  Click for a larger image.

Dragonwood appears to be very commonly used for the trunks and larger branches of artificial (silk) trees.  It’s also commonly used to make perches for pet birds, and I gather somewhat less commonly used to make cat trees and cheap furniture.  That’s all interesting, but I couldn’t find a picture of a dragonwood tree or anything that gave me the botanical name of the silly thing.  The best I could find is that it grows in Florida.

Somebody else on the forum posted an answer this afternoon, identifying the wood as Lyonia Ferruginea (rusty staggerbrush), a shrub or small tree that grows in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.  In case you’re interested, that person also indicated that it’s good carving wood.

I’m really surprised that this one stumped me.  The common name dragonwood (less often, “dragon wood”) is used in a lot of places, but I was unable to find a any reference that showed its botanical name.  I figured I could find it just like I can type “bottle brush tree” and get the botanical name.  No such luck.

One resource said that “dragonwood” was a corruption of the original “draggin’ wood”, which describes how they get the wood out of the thicket after it’s cut.

Hopefully anybody else looking for a description of dragonwood will find this post and not have to wade through a few dozen pages of links to fake plants and parrot cage goodies.

Cub in a stump is a pattern from Mike Shipley’s Woodcarving the Country Bear and His Friends.  The orange face is a bit brighter than I had planned.  Debra says he looks like a traffic cone.  So I named him T. Cone Bear.

I carved the rabbit one night in a bit of a rush.  I had been invited to an old friend’s birthday party and had two days to come up with something.  She and her husband have rabbits for pets, so I thought this refrigerator magnet would be appropriate.

You might remember the sweet potato I carved over Thanksgiving. Here’s what it looks like after drying and antiquing:

The snake below is carved from a piece of 400 year old mahogany that a friend gave me.  It’s beautiful wood, but the hardest dang stuff I’ve ever carved.  It sure finishes up nice, though.  The snake is seven inches long.

And more little dogs.  In the first picture, the two dogs on the left are carved from spalted maple.  The dog on the right is from a piece of mesquite.  The dog in the middle is two inches tall.  The second picture shows my latest little dog, carved from a piece of Bradford pear, much like the piece shown in the picture.  This one, too, is two inches tall.

This sure would be more convenient if I could just link to the photos I post on Facebook.  For reasons that are unclear to me, I can link to the pictures, but I can’t actually show the pictures from there in my blog.  They must have a block of some kind to prevent image hijacking.  Oh, well.  If you like, you can see the entire photo album.

Dave Brock presents a three-part video series that will walk you through it step-by-step.  All you need is a piece of basswood that’s approximately 1″x1″x6″.  The penguin itself is only 2-3/4″ long, but you’ll want the extra length to hold on to.  Carve one, flip the stick over and carve the other, and then cut the two penguins apart.

Simple Simon, Part 1
Simple Simon, Part 2
Simple Simon, Part 3

As I said, spalting occurs during decay.  Another side effect of decay is that the wood often becomes softer (sometimes a good thing) and more likely to splinter (not a good thing).  This piece was quite prone to splinter, causing me to lose the tail, half of the left foot, and part of an ear.  Still, I love the color and I think this is the best face I’ve done yet.

Barry is about 4 inches tall.  It was another project for my carving class.