I was getting tired of the bears and little trinkets, so I thought I’d learn how to carve something else.  Since I liked that 5-Minute Bear tutorial so much, I figured I’d take a crack at the 5-Minute Wizard:

The blank is a piece of basswood, six inches long and one inch square. I thought they’d make nice tree ornaments, but six inches is pretty big. I think four inches would make a better ornament.

The day after I carved the third wizard there, I picked up a branch in the yard and carved this:

The wood is from one of the Red-Tipped Photinia bushes that are at the south side of the pool.  It carved fairly nicely when it was green.  I’ve put some up to dry.  Guess I’ll find out next year how well it carves once it’s seasoned.

I had hoped to follow along with Allen Goodman’s Shelf Elf video series, but didn’t have a basswood block of appropriate size.  I did, however, have a somewhat smaller piece and an idea.  Thus was born the shelf wizard:

The picture is a bit blurry, I know.  The wizard is designed to sit on a shelf, with his beard hanging over.  The piece is a little less than three inches from tip of beard to top of head.