This may be my next carving. Painted but not gilded.

Being a cat lover myself, this is one cool cat! Looking forward to what you create on this too Frederick!

That's gonna be neat, Rick!

I'll be following "Garfield's adventures." No doubt your rendition will be purrfect.

Edited October 15, 2025Oct 15 by Grandpadave52

34 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

I'll be following "Garfield's adventures." No doubt your rendition will be purrfect.

Unless something "cat"astrophic happens.

I'm back from a 3 week trip to the Balkans and have the missed-yard tasks completed, except for the snow shoveling today. I've been gluing up the basswood pieces, to form the carving blank, for this cat. There is almost 14 board feet used for this glue-up. Once done, I can proceed to do the carving/shaping. I'm very unsure about how to approach the carving but I'm thinking there will be some back saw work involved, initially, followed by the gouge details. I'm also thinking that I'll carve the bottom half first, followed by the top half details.

Where did you find the basswood, Hicksville??

18 minutes ago, lew said:

Where did you find the basswood, Hicksville??

Bricker's lumber mill on Johnston Road.

Even closer. Gonna have to stop out there and check them out.

32 minutes ago, lew said:

Even closer. Gonna have to stop out there and check them out.

Yes, I've gotten some nice poplar/pine/basswood from them at reasonable prices. Sometimes, I'll travel to Hicksville to pick up that "perfect" piece of wood. They usually carry very wide boards!!!

2 hours ago, FrederickH said:

I'm back from a 3 week trip to the Balkans

Rule is, no pictures, never happened...that and I don't get out much.😉

1 hour ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Rule is, no pictures, never happened...that and I don't get out much.😉

We visited many, many Mosques along the way.

Looking a little bit like the Sphinx. There's an awful lot of wood to remove and I'm using chisels, gouges, backsaws, and rasps to shape the carving.

 

Edited December 6, 2025Dec 6 by FrederickH

I can see the kitty in there!

Progressing purrfectly Rick.

I was looking at the behind , then read your comment, Yes Sphinx 

You have a good start.

My carving of the Folk Art Cat is progressing slowly because of all of the end grain that must be shaved off. I don't use a mallet with my gouges, just pushing with my hand.

Great progress Rick. Puurrfect day to be inside working on a project.

1 hour ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Great progress Rick. Puurrfect day to be inside working on a project.

I'm hoping to be done in time to show it to Santa Claws.