Scarecrow ornament

A recent issue of Woodcarving Illustrated magazine had a one-page article showing this miniature scarecrow ornament. It’s about 3.5 inches tall, carved from wood about 3/4 inch thick. I didn’t have any basswood of appropriate thickness, so I grabbed a board from an old pallet that I’d torn apart for scrap lumber.  I have way too much of that scrap lumber (guess I don’t spend enough time in the garage knocking things together), but now I have a use for it.

The pine carved reasonably well.  It’s brittle in a few places, but overall is fun to carve.

I goofed a bit on the first ornament, getting the legs too thin and breaking one that I had to glue back on.  But the second turned out pretty good.  I have one more blank cut out, and lots of wood to cut out more if I want.  Although I’ll fix the bandsaw before I cut out any more.  Doing these with the coping saw is tedious.

Picture quality is pretty poor.  I was in a hurry this morning.  I took the ornaments outside, figuring it’d be nice to get pictures of them hanging from a tree in the back yard.  I obviously have a bit to learn about taking pictures, especially in the early morning light.

The pattern and short description are on Page 86 of Woodcarving Illustrated Issue #52.  I think you should be able to navigate to the article from that Scribd link.