Chris Pye: Woodcarving 

Roger Strautman:
The Shroud
email: CarverRog@aol.com
This carving is for sale at $11,000.
Please contact Roger Strautman directly.

2006
Basswood (cross) and Butternut (linen)
Cross: 5'4" high x 3'2" wide x 2" deep
Linen: 2'9" high X 2'6" wide X 3" deep

 

 

This piece started out as just a chip carved cross. When it was finished it was nice but I wanted to make a statement with it, so I added the draped linen into which is carved Apostles Creed.
At 3 carving shows where it was displayed, I even had small children walk up and read what the linen had on it - so I must have did something right!

Author's Images & Notes of the Work in Progress.
These are full pictures - please allow time for them to load.
The glue up of this linen was a challenge for me. I had to really think of where all the thickened areas would be and I had never glued anything this wide before:
Let's just say I learned a few things in this stage!
I bandsawed the profile and drew out where all the folds would be:
Getting a good start on the rough out.

It helped me to work on it for a few hours and then walk away for a day. When I came back to it, I could see things that I needed to change:

I took a real piece of cloth and hung it as if it were on the cross so I would make sure I didn't cover up the cross hub.
I then took pictures of the cloth and used them as reference material:
I made the pegs out of real Bloodwood for the symbolism - they do actually hold the linen on the cross:
To get the the contrast in colors, I carved the linen relief first, wood bleached it and then chip carved through the surface.
The chip carving on the bottom edge was really delicate work because Butternut does not take to this sort of detail:
 
 
This carving is for sale at $11,000.
Please contact Roger Strautman directly.
 

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