...Take Your Next Step In Creativity...
Old-World Woodcarving Classes with David Calvo

Master Woodcarver David Calvo has been a featured woodcarving teacher on the
National PBS Television Shows; The American Woodshop with Scott Phillips and
The Woodwright's Shop with Roy Underhill. In his woodcarving classes, David's
apprenticeship training and 28 years of professional experience give him the ability
to articulate the skill and trade secrets of woodcarving.

"A DAY WITH A TEACHER IS WORTH A THOUSAND PAGES." Chinese Proverb

2008 David Calvo Welcome Letter

What Students say about Calvo Woodcarving School

Wood Carving & Sculpture Classes

Master Carver
David Calvo
with Roy Underhill
on PBS TV
The Woodwright's Shop

David Calvo Carving Wood
Read David Calvo's woodcarving article in the October 2006 Popular Woodworking
Read David Calvo's woodcarving article in the November 2006 Popular Woodworking

Read David Calvo's articles in Popular Woodworking Magazine on learning how to carve wood. His first two articles deals with carving tool selection, reshaping your edges for better control and sharpening methods specific for carving tools.

Articles to follow will be on carving technique.



Five-Day Bare Bones Woodcarving Classes

The Bare Bones Woodcarving Class will give the beginner carving enthusiast a solid foundation in woodcarving. You don't have to be a physical giant to handle woodcarving tools; it's all in the technique. Learning the fundamentals of woodcarving is like watching a tennis pro who has trained his tennis volley to be both effortless and graceful. Woodcarving can be effortless and graceful too. This is the romance of the skill.

We will Study and Explore the Following:

  • WOOD CARVING TOOLS: Learn how to redesign and sharpen your tool edge so that you have better control and a more versatile woodcarving chisel. I will show you how to sharpen with the proficiency that was used in the European apprenticship programs. I also incorporate some Japanese sharpening theory because the training of their hand sensitivity is an integral part of their apprenticeship. Sharp tools that easily bite into the wood and do not skate are an important ingredient for woodcarving with intent.

  • WOOD CARVING TECHNIQUE: Learn how to handle your carving tools in the wood; from roughing out the beginnings of your project to the final delicate detailing . I teach an approach I call the "cradle position" and it is an integral part of good hand technique. Wood carving is a skill that incorporates the body to better assist your hand control of the gouges. It is like a baseball pitcher throwing you a ball. You swing with the bat and use your body to step into the hit. The same is true in woodcarving, you use your body strength and weight for the cutting action.

  • ART OF SEEING: Learn the mechanical steps in the process of carving. Often I hear my new students say what I call the beginner's mantra... "What do I do next?" There are mechanical steps to seeing what is the next action in your project. I also work with an approach perspective I call visual mapping. It is an activity, same as using a map, that helps you to move through the progressive steps of your carving project. It is teachable and gaining this skill is critical for the beginner's eye.

    DESIGN SKILLS: Learn how to design your wood carving projects using references that many of the great artists used. There are many basic tools and mechanical steps to designing that are unknown to the novice woodcarver. This approach to building your design will expand your imagination and the steps to creating your own projects will start to come more easily to you.

  • TRADE SECRETS: Finally, among many other things, you will learn about finishing and building contrast in your piece, a necessity to having a striking, attractive look. You will learn alot of trade secrets in these woodcarving classes that were thoughtfully passed down to me from my European teachers.

This wood carving class will give you the skills to add creative, personal details to all your wood working projects. It is a chance for the woodworking student to take his or her skills to the next level. The class and workshop formats are three or five days in length. Calvo Woodcarving School located in Gloucester, Massachusetts is a convenient commute from Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and New York City areas. Check woodcarving schedule page for dates and prices. For more description info click on: The Bare Bones of Wood Carving Article. This wood carving workshop will give you skills that will put you on a whole new level. You will be pleased with your new found woodcarving abilities.

Intermediate Techniques Wood Carving Class

Here is an opportunity to develop your woodcarving skills by becoming more aware of technique and design through progressively more challenging skills. Great carving is not built on strength or how fast you can carve like a racing car driver. Mature carving is built on learning the subtleties of the skill. We will be working with a more advanced woodcarving project and we will build on the fundamentals that you learned in my beginners’ course. Each of you will be working from a plaster cast to help guide you to the finish line. Among many things, we will work more with the mechanics of your hand technique focusing on intentional controlled cuts.  Also, like two vines that weave up a trellis, we will continue to train your eyes in aspects of visual mapping or what I like to call the mantra of the beginner woodcarver “What do I do next?” This course will focus on the next set of techniques that are key for you to unlock a new door in becoming more advanced in woodcarving.

Two-Day Forging Wood Carving Tools

My German wood carving teacher, Frederick Brunner, forged all his own woodcarving tools. He was not only an able artist but he was also an expert mechanic in the woodcarving field as well. He proudly showed me one day the first tool he had ever forged that he used into his eighties. Both Brunner and his protege taught me the skill of forging tools which was part of the woodcarver's professional arsenal in the old days. There is absolutely nothing more satisfying than carving wood with a tool that you have made. Learning how to forge your own wood carving tools will complete your skills. This is a excellent forum for the study and understanding of good tool design necessary for the control needed in wood carving. You will treasure your hand forged tools and they will become the favorites of your collection. Guaranteed.

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