Crazypants for the Carving Thing

Okay, so maybe I went a little crazypants, but I'm jumping into this woodcarving thing with both feet.  I bought the books and I bought the tools. I've ordered the stuff* I'll need for designing what I will eventually carve - charcoal pencils, tracing paper, carbon paper.  All in all, I've spent about $135 on this so far.  Thank goodness I don't need to buy wood.

I already have several pieces of fine wood set aside.  I have the dogwood and the lilac pieces, loads of cedar, and some smaller black cherry set aside.  There's a persimmon tree that needs to be dug out of one of our wood piles, which I'll do today.  Years ago**, I also set aside a few pieces of unidentified wood that I hope will make excellent walking sticks.  Oh, and there's the beaver wood I've collected.  I kinda know what I'm going to do with the beaver wood, even if I don't know exactly what kind of wood each of the pieces are.  

If all of this works out, I will start selling pieces.  That is obviously down the road.  I don't expect to start cranking out saleable goods immediately.  Hell, I'm half-afraid I won't turn out anything that doesn't look like crap... ever.  

There's also the distinct possibility that I will be limited by my already crappy hands.  Man, they're hurting this morning and I didn't even do anything to irritate them.  (Other than typing this post.  Blerg.)  How I'll handle using them to push sharp metal through wood remains to be seen.  

But I'm gonna try.  

All I know right now is that I'm excited about doing this and that's a good feeling.  It's been a while since I was this excited about any endeavor.  (Probably like 11 years... which is how long it's been since I started my self-publishing journey.)  

I guess the big hope is that I'll bleed some of my visual creativity onto the wood.  I used to be really into creating art.  Hell, I took 4 years of art classes in HS and one in college.  I ought to be able to do something, even after all these years.

Not sure if I'll continue to detail my carving journey here, or create another blog.  :shrug:  Time will tell.  Wish me luck.

*All ordered stuff is due to be here by Saturday, so I have plenty of time to start practicing carving before I get into design.

** which tells you how long I've been thinking about doing this.