Western Harmony front view
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Western Harmony side view
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Large skiing Santa, side view
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Large Santa Skiing, front view
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Amiati Tondo
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Western Harmony
 | This is a very personal wood carving because it is so autobiographical. I play an accordion, the dog singing is a composite of my current dog Tilly, and a greyhound we once had named “Screamin’ Mimi’, the singing dog. The wedge shaped piece of mesquite wood came from my friend Alan Hall, from a tree he cut down at his Arizona home. The shape of the wood at first made me think of the southwestern howling coyote. But then I thought why not make it personal and tell the viewer a little about the artist. |
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Reading Medallion
 | This is a painted low plaster relief of my Granddaughter, Honora. If anyone could win a reading medallion, it would be my Grandaughter. She is typically reading three or four books at one time. |
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Platypus (front view)
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Poppi Platypus (side view)
 | I carved this for my Granddaughter Clare, she calls me Poppi. Clare Martin wrote this clever poem about Platypuses.
A platypus looks like a beaver and a duck,
So it's just your luck,
If you see one in the wild!
They are very strange animals.
Platypuses lay eggs but they are mammals!
And on the back of their ankles,
The males have a venomous tooth!
None live in a telephone booth
But most live in Australia.
While they might not wear lots of regalia,
Platypuses have intelligent minds,
And all are one of a kind!
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Cock-a-Doodle-do, Time to Wake Up
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Cock-a-Doodle-do, Time to Wake Up, front view
 | I was given this beautiful piece of Black Walnut from Boulder County Open Space. The Wood came from an Oak groove that a early 19th century homesteader. As I drove In the farm country I saw a rooster strutting in a farm yard. |
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Snickers, Cow Pony
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Snickers, Cow Pony (Side view)
 | I wanted to see how many hours it would take me to carve this little horse. One of my favorite short stories is by Jack Shaeffer, "A Cowboy's Christmas". The main character, Stubby Pringle, carved a cowboy pony for a little boy in a few hours. It took me twelve hours to carve this little pony for my Grandson Patrick for his birthday. It was a belated birthday gift. |
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Putin-Trump Totem Pole (Front)
 | I had to carve this totem as a response to sheer frustration with the POTUS. Putin is perched on top of Trump and has control of the POTUS by his tight grip to his obscene red neck tie. In Putin's other hand he is showering Trump with gold coins because Trump has been bought and controlled by Russia's money. There is nothing pretty or redeeming about this carving, I purposefully made it as ugly as the soul of this man. |
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Putin-Trump Totem Pole (side view)
 | Some other detail to see on the carving is unnatural color of Trumps tan facial make-up, and his bruised and swollen eyes from his too tight tanning goggles. Putin the Thunderbird has the imperial Russian Eagle wings, and nuclear warhead missiles coming out of his Russian Bear Skin MACC hat. MACC in Russian means, "Make America a Soviet Satellite". |
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Mike Towey, group shot
 | I made eleven copies of the original carving of Mike Towey for our 2018 Christmas. The copies went to my wife's mother, her four sisters and Mike's eight Grandchildren. These are made from poured acrylic resin. Casting a sculpture is an art in it's self. I have to say that this was more of a painting project to make all the copies look the same. |
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Angel (Side view)
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Angel with concertina (Front)
 | Another lunch-time carving. I can't imagine a more joyous noise than a angel concertina choir. |
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Mike Towey
 | This is a portrait carving of my dear old Father-in-Law, Mike Towey. MIke came to America from County Mayo in Ireland at the end of the War. He spent his career with the United States Post Office, he raised five daughters and raced his kennel of Greyhounds. In retirement his passion was fishing, which I thought was unusual because I would not say he was a man of patience. Here he is undoing a knot of fishing line that occurred when his casting line got tangled in the overhead trees. |
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Mike Towey, side view
 | My thought when making this carving would be to use the wood piece as a pattern to make a mold and cast multiple images in poly-urethane for my wife's family. Now that I'm retired I need to make that my priority for this Christmas. |
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Warrior Chief (Front view)
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Warrior Chief (Side view)
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Captain Jinks (Front view)
 | This is a miniature replica of a 19th century tobacco advertisement that would have stood outside a drugstore. I like the solid stolid pose of Captain Jinx. His whole atitude is pointed striaight forward, from his military cap’s tight brim and prominent nose, to his tightly crossed arms in front of his chest. |
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Captain Jinks (Side view)
 | Another endearing aspect of "Captain Jinks" is his song sung by the 5th army Calvary in his honor, "Captain Jinx of the Horse Marine's”, who feeds his horse on Pork and Beans. A wonderful character that I hope shows in my carving of him.
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Cowboy Caffe Latte (Front view)
 | With anything that I carve there has to be a story or a joke. I always wanted to carve a cowboy squatting in front of a campfire pouring a cup of coffee. However, there wasn’t a joke there until I changed the cowboy into a corporate/weekend Cowboy pouring himself his venti cup of caffe latte. |
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Cowboy Caffe Latte (side view)
 | I also wanted to use this piece to test my carving skills by seeing how deep I could dig into this wood block. I nearly carved through the whole block and I opened up holes betwen the arms and around the legs. So much of the carving is happening inside his outstretched arms. |
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Old Branch (Front view)
 | I imagined Old Branch would have been quite a character in his hay-day. When we first moved to Broomfield there was an ancient cowboy living in a small frame house not too far from the Boulder - Denver Turnpike. His lone frame house was pleasantly nestled in a cool grove of Cottonwoods before the highway was built in the late 1950's, Remnants of a dried out reservoir can still be seen not far from the house foundations. |
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Old Branch (Side view)
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Whittling (Side view)
 | I love to see how much I can put into a small block of wood by taking away only what is necessary. I like to carve from the corners, first because it's easier to dig into the wood from the corners, also I can create more depth when I utilize the corners. I like looking at my finished pieces and see the original block of wood. |
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Whittling (Front view)
 | Another small cowboy with a big old mustache. I imagined that this cowboy is now riding the rodeo circuit and in between events he passes his time making carvings. If you push the zoom button you can see hat he is carving a horse. |
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Olive Oyl Fantasy
 | I made plaster molds for Popeye and GaneshaWimpy that I could quickly press out clay panels for wall hangings. I'm thinking that I will make molds for Brutus and Olive Oyl so I can press out further adventures with Popeye and his Friends. For as simple of a medium as clay is I still need to learn more about glazing and firing. I would like to take another session of ceramics at the Arvada Art Center. |
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Unicycle (Front view)
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Unicycle (Side view)
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Smile When You Say That, front view
 | This carving was inspired by the famous quote “Smile When You Say That” from the book by Owen Wister, “The Virginian”.I had a narrow piece of wood that I knew would work perfect for the carving. I figured if you were in a gun fight you would want to be as slight a target as possible. The steely eyed look came from a violent painting at the Denver Art Museum by N.C. Wyeth, “The Gunfight”. |
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Smile When You Say That, side view
 | This was a fun piece to carve. It was carved from basswood which is a soft tight grained wood preferred by most carvers. I'm happy with the final result and the color painting. This was shown in the "Artist Showcase" for the employees and volunteers of the Denver Art Museum. I can now say that I've shown at the Art Museum |
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Smile When You Say That
 | I'm blocking in the figure and I think this is the most fun part of the carving where I'm taking away large sections from the wood block. "Smile when you say that", is from "The Virginian" by Owen Wister. The figure was also inspired by the painting "The Gunfight" by N.C. Wyeth |
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Unicycle
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unicycle, side view, unfinished
 | I'm getting closer to the finished image. I love opening up the block of wood and making holes through the piece, I need to open the wheel into a perfect dircle. |
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Nude on a bagel
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Alpaca cups
 | The design for this cup came from a pre-Columbian vessel that is in the Denver Art Museum collection. The original pre-Columbian piece was carved from jade and is about half the size of these drinking cups. These cup are still in their earthen ware state I need to get these fired; I must have at least one full kiln now of unfired pieces. |
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Ocarinas, Horse and Pig
 | I discovered on the pre-Colombian floor at the Denver Art Museum cases full of beautiful ceramic figurines from Mexico and Central America. On closer inspection of these amazing creatures I saw they were musical ocarinas. This started me on a five year quest to sketch the pieces in the collection and try and copy them in clay.
These are two successful results of my studies and exploration into musical ocarinas, a horse and a pig. |
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Ocarinas, Thing and Man in Boat
 | The Man in the Boat is unusual because it is a one-handed ocarina. All four holes can be closed with the righthand fingers. It has a different fingering pattern than a two handed ocarina but I thought it would be nice to play while hiking. I still need to perfect the donut shaped ocarina to facilitate a clearer sound. |
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Nativity, front view
 | This was carved for the new sanctuary for "Nativity of Our Lord" Catholic Church. This was quite a project, I created a maquette one third the size of the final piece. I had to lamenate 12 pieces of two inch stock to get the correct size for the finished sculpture. I used calipers to calibrate the maquette up to the full size. This took me two years of part time carving, I figured about 1,000 hours, to finish the piece. |
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Nativity, side view
 | Carving is such a beautiful process, it's slow and relaxing especially when I'm using a mallet and chisel. I learned so much from this carving and I look forward to the time when I can undertake my next intensive sculpture project. |
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The Singing Cowboy
 | A real fun carving, again a lot of movement with an economy of wood being cut away. I always like carving the big mustaches it covers so much of the mouth. |
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The Singing Cowboy, side view
 | Yoiu'll notice that I'm using tanned leather to make the brim of the cowboy hat. I finally discovered that using leather for the brim takes no carving time at all and a carved wooden hat brim is always bulky and not as crisp as I'm getting with the leather. Take a look at the carving "Bidding my Time" and you can see a clunky carved hat brim. |
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Bitsy Quail
 | Bitsy Quail is a made up character that I imagined Stubby Pringle would run into at the community dance. I think Bitsy Quail is the gal referred to in the famous song "Buffalo Gal". She danced with a hole in her stocking and her knees were a knockin'. |
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Bitsy Quail, side view
 | Bitsy Quail represents the pioneer spirit of the woman who went west for adventure. I imagine she came from old eastern seaboard stock and being somewhat homely the normal avenue to matrimony was out of the question. She went west to seek her fortunes and find adventure. My Mother has this carving proudly displayed in her breakfront hutch to remind her of her own pioneer heritage. |
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Small skiing Santa, Front view
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Small skiing Santa, side view
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Stubby Pringle and Penny
 | I thought maybe I'd make up a story about Stubby Pringle adopting a Buffalo calf. He would train her to be like his horse. I only started the story in my head and continued to think about it over the hours of my carving. It's always fun for me to work at carving a buffalo, |
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Stubby Pringle and Penny, side view
 | Only the real good cowboy can twirl two loops of rope at one time. Back in the heyday of the Cowboys many of them did to show off their skill. My favorite artist Charlie Russell told a story where a cowboy lassoed two troublesome coyotes and they ended up swing from the same tree branch. |
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Stubby Pringle
 | "Ma'am may I have this dance?" Stubby would ask. I imagine he would encounter Bitsy Quail who would dance circles around Stubby. |
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Stubby Pringle
 | All of my carvings of Stubby Pringle come from a wonderful little Christmas Story called "A Cowboy's Christmas" by Jack Schaeffer. Stubby is the main character and we're introduced to him in the story on his way from his line cabin to a Western settlement where there will be girls and dancing. This is how I imagine Stubby would approach the girl to ask her for a dance. |
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Rat Racer
 | This was a carving that I did mostly in the front seat of my '88 Mazda 323. This car was my artist studio for many years and the only time to carve was during my lunch break. Please look at the detail of the rats. |
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Rat Racer,side view
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St. John's and Smallwood Children
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Stubby Pringle, front view
 | This sculpture was inspired by the character from one of my favorite Christmas stories, "A Cowboy's Christmas" by Jack Schaeffer. Stubby Pringle has nothing but gives everything he has even his precious time to make a Settler's Family Christmas memorable. |
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Stubby Pringle, side view
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The Christmas Grinch
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Thje Grinch
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American Michelangelo
 | The first wood carvings. My Art Idol is Michelangelo and this is my poor simple homage to him. If he were a modern day sculptor he might have carved Grandma "Moses" and an Old West "David". |
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American Michelangelo,sideview
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Santa Claus
 | This is an early carving. I really like all tjhe movement in the carving even though only a small part of the block had to be carved away. |
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Santa Claus, sideview
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Maura and Eamon at school desk
 | Painted plaster relief |
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Swan Dance
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© Copyright 2014-2019 by Paul Smallwood - All rights reserved. |
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