Here are some of the pieces that I teach beginners to carve.
 Each design  generally takes 3 hours to complete. 
Tackling these projects gives the students a good introduction to basic carving techniques using the gouge, v-tool and flat chisels along with the carver's mallet.

The timber I use for beginners is Lime.
 It is close grained, will take detail and has a fairly consistent colour. It's also a relatively soft timber which, with sharp, honed chisels, cuts and finishes cleanly.

 I carve all sorts of subjects.

They range from decorative to figurative to abstract.

Here are some more.

Torsion

Carved from the root of an elm tree.

The surface is textured with a riffler ( a type of rasp ).

The piece is sealed with a number of coats of danish oil and is mounted on a spalted sycamore base.

Snailshell

Carved from a piece of yew.

Sealed with a number of coats of danish oil and finished with beeswax.

I carve wood. 

The hand tools I use are woodcarving chisels and a woodcarvers mallet.

On anything but the smallest of carvings I swing the mallet, to hit the chisel handle, to direct the cutting edge, to shape the wood.

That's where the title of this blog comes from.

Here are some images of my work.

Black Heron

Carved from Sycamore, stained black, sealed with danish oil and finished with beeswax.

Mounted on a steel support.

The base is a turned spalted beech sphere on a turned mahogany platform.