West Coast Eisteddfod L.A. Lovespoon 2011 - And The Winners Are......

After due deliberation David is pleased to announce the winners of the design element competition for this years West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon . The finished piece which will be on display at the event at the Barnsdall Art Center between September 23rd and 25th, incorporates three design elements which were selected by popular suggestion and vote both here and on the AmeriCymru website . From an initial list of about 30 suggestions the final slate was whittled down to just five contenders. Here are the three winners:-

3. Cerdd:  The harp is seen as the symbol of Welsh music (Cerdd is the word for music in Welsh). The Welsh are renowned for their musicality and music is always an important part of the Eisteddfod experience.

2. The Awen:   Awen is a Welsh word for "(poetic) inspiration". Used historically to describe the poetic inspiration of the bards, it is a beautifully apt and very stylish symbol for an Eisteddfod spoon!

1. This lovely design by Laura Gorun includes the ever popular Welsh Daffodils and leeks. These iconic symbols of Wales are always a beautiful addition to any lovespoon design!

The Harp design won outright with 24.36% of the vote whilst the Daffodils and Awen both tied for second place with 21.79%. The winners each of whom will receive a copy of David's book, "The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons" are:-

1. Jennifer Brodeur
2. Brian Y Tarw Lwyd
3. Laura Gorun 

Many thanks to all who contributed designs and/or voted in the competition. We will present the first two named winners with their prizes at the West Coast Eisteddfod in September and Laura's copy will be mailed.

Please don't forget that the principal purpose of all this is to raise funds for this years event. So if you have a few ( or many ) dollars to spare please consider buying a few tickets for the grand prize draw which will take place at the Eisteddfod. You can enter the prize draw via the 'Donate' button in the right hand column on David Western's Lovespoon Blog or in the left hand column on AmeriCymru.net.

Bookmark this blog for further developments and to follow the creation of this unique work of art.

Details, details -- and tools

Now that the spoon bowls are nicely shaped, I am going to move on to the vines. These need to work over and under each other, but don't need the formality and regularity of Celtic knotwork. The idea is that they appear organic and natural, so I will round them over much more than a Celtic knot and try to get a more 'random' feel to their movement up the spoon handle.
To achieve this look, I begin by gently ramping down the wood on either side of an 'over', thus creating the 'under'. I don't take too much off initially; I just take enough so that I can see the over under pattern clearly. By taking a shallow cut, I can rectify mistakes in the 'over/undering' or can change the pattern if I prefer a different order. If I commit to a deep cut and make an error, I can easily find myself in hot water. I use a simple straight knife for this process. The straight knives I use tend to have very short and pointy blades. These give me access to tight areas and keep me from getting carried away and cutting too much material at a pass.

I am a great believer in taking multiple shallow cuts rather than getting all excited and pulling off great heaving strips with big deep passes. Its easier on the hands, the spoon and the state of my mental health to take my time and not push things. When the over and unders are completed, I round over the edges quite heavily with the knife and with some small files. With the rounding over looking good, I finish the vines with some cloth backed abrasive paper which I tear into thin 6 inch strips and draw back and forth over the edges for a final rounding.

In response to questions I have received about the knives I use, I have included this slightly blurry shot of my straight knife collection. These knives are the ones I use for all my spoon carving. They are all inexpensive tools but they are the workhorses of my art. As long as the steel is of good quality and will hold a sharp edge, any one of these little knives is capable of helping me to carve a beautiful spoon. Nothing fancier or more technical is necessary!

I began my spoon carving career with the chip carving knife at the bottom of the photo. This economical knife will do everything a beginning carver requires and it won't break the bank when you visit the tool dealer!

The pointy Flex Cut brand knife above it was my second knife and has an ergonomically designed handle which makes long carving sessions a much more comfortable proposition. The skew bladed Japanese knife second from top is one that I use for getting into tight corners and for shaping edges. Its a lovely knife, but its skew shape has taken some getting used to and it might not be a good knife for a beginner.

But it is the top knife which currently has my heart! A Flex Cut brand knife endearingly known as a 'pelican', it is an absolutely sweet little knife. With a tiny blade and comfy handle, pelican and I spend many hours together and I would recommend this style of knife above all others for serious lovespoon carving.

Crafting the Bowls

I have been working on the spoon bowls and have roughed them out to almost their final look. The first pic shows the front view and the second shows the back.

I am a firm believer that a good lovespoon must have a really well carved bowl. My research through the museums of Wales has shown me that in the olden days, a great deal of effort was put into the bowls, no matter how adept or crude the carver. When you stop to consider the rather meager tools that many of these young men would have had access to, some of their work borders on miraculous.

Many of the spoons I see for sale on the 'gift shop' type lovespoon sites suffer from extremely poorly designed and carved bowls. In many it appears the bowl was just an afterthought which was only grudgingly included so that the piece of wood is recognizable as a spoon. I think this is a great shame as the bowl lends a quiet dignity to the proceedings. Lovespoons are busy and vibrant things with the handles often being a veritable riot of activity. An elegant bowl acts as a real visual anchor and can have a quieting effect on the overall design. It also is a real measure of a carver's skill to get it even and fair with the right 'look'. I spend a good deal of time fussing with the bowl and I honestly believe that the effort I put in on an easily overlooked detail pays big dividends at the end of the job.

But that is enough sermonizing (is that a word?...it is now) for one day. I just hope that you'll agree with me that so far this double bowl has a very romantic feel to it and that it is doing a good job symbolizing 'union'.

Thank you for dropping by to see how things are progressing! I hope that you will be inspired to join our efforts to initiate an Eisteddfod in Portland and I look forward to reading your comments.

Taking Shape

Well, the fun stuff has finally started. I've been busy scroll sawing out the shape of the spoon and am very pleased with how the wood has responded. There is lots of lovely grain patterns which should make the bowl and the leaf look really vibrant and the wood has been cutting evenly with no splitting or shattering. Wood this old and dry can sometimes be a bit brittle, but this walnut seems very good. The dowel that I came across last week shows up pretty well in this photo, but won't be quite so visible when the spoon is complete. I'm very pleased with the proportions and am even more confident that this will be a very smart spoon when complete.

In the second picture I have begun carving out the spoon bowl using a hand-made bent knife. These are specially made for me by Mike Komick at Preferred Edge Tools who specializes in crafting razor sharp, beautifully made blades. In the old days, the Welsh carvers used a ferocious looking bent bladed knife called a 'twca cam' which was often fashioned from whatever metal was at hand. Thankfully for me, I can rely on Mike to use the very best steel so that I can reap the benefits of a good, keen edge. Many carvers use gouges, electric grinding tools and curved scrapers to achieve the same ends, but I personally prefer the bent knife.

Carving the spoon bowl is one of my favourite parts of the process and is one I am happy to spend a good deal of time on. I tend to think that a lot of spoon carvers consider their bowls an afterthought with the lack of attention they give them showing up as a clunky and unsightly end to their hard carving efforts on the handle. But I'm starting to get preachy, so I'll get back to the tools and see how things shape up.

Before I go though, I hope that you are enjoying the blog so far and that you will feel inclined to donate a dollar or two to the Left Coast Eisteddfod! Every dollar you gift will equal a chance to win this spoon when it is completed. I hope you'll join in and I wish you good luck!