Every pattern has it's own specific needs when placing it onto your wood form.  With this pattern you need to note that you will be carving water.  Water is always level!  The contours of the shoreline may change, there may be ripples or waves, but the water as a whole can not slant to one side or the other.  On your pattern there is one long water line just below the background mountains.  This is the line that needs to be level around the face of your plaque.

A second consideration for this pattern again revolves around the longest water line.  This design is cut into two sections, the area above the horizon water line and the area below that line.  I don't want that line to fall exactly in the middle of the height of the plaque.  This would visually cut the wood in half.  Instead I want it either above or below the middle mark on the face of the wood.

I chose to place the water line below middle.  If I were going personalize this carving with a name or specific boat then I would have moved this line above middle to allow room at the bottom for the lettering.  So I have made a pencil mark 4 1/2" up from the bottom on the face of the plaque.  When I taped the pattern in place these two marks were used to guides for the longest water line in the pattern.

I have cut the pattern to allow the pencil marking I made on the plaque to show, then taped the pattern onto the wood on one side of the paper.  Typewriter carbon paper is placed under the printed pattern and an ink pen is used to trace over the lines. Carbon paper is available at most office supply stores.

When you are working with levels in the early carving stages you do not need to trace every detail of your pattern.  Just the outline of that level area is necessary.  However, out of old habits, I still trace everything at this point.  Even though I know that I will be quickly carving away most of the tracing this lets me think about that image that I will be carving and how each element is placed next to another element.

Here is the completed tracing of the pattern.  Carbon paper leaves a soft gray black line that does not smudge as pencil graphite does.  

When sizing your pattern for your
wood blank allow a wide margin 
of wood beyond the
pattern's borders.

Typewrite carbon paper is an
excellent transfer paper and can
be taped directly to the wood.

Working from the routed edges of 
your plaque mark two pencil lines. These
will be used as tapering lines for the 
transition area between the plaque 
and the carving.  

Water is always level, so the water
line beneath the mountain ridge needs
to be squared to the edges of
your carving board.

WORKING WITH THE GRAIN OF YOUR WOOD
BASIC ROUGHING OUT CUTS

The roughing out process is generally the same for each level.  First the outline of the level is carved with the bench knife to create a stop cut.  The bench knife is held upright to the wood to make as vertical a cut as possible.  Use a chisel or round gouge to begin removing the excess wood.  Work these tools as much as possible with the grain of the wood and with the carving stroke ending at the stop cut.  When the chisel or gouge reaches the stop cut the stroke is complete and the wood chip will lift out.

Carving strokes that go as closely as possible with the wood grain will be smooth even cuts.  Those that go against the grain tend to be ragged as they tear the wood instead of cut the wood.  Against the  grain cuts can also pull your knife deeper into the wood plaque then you intended.  This causes splintering or sections of grain to be lifted with the knife cut.  

A wood carving does not have to be worked right side up!  You can turn the wood plaque at any time in to position so that your stroke is going with the grain.

The stop cut is made with a bench knife. Hold the tool vertical to the wood surface and carve a line along the pattern tracing line. This stop cut can be widened slightly by  tilting the knife a few degrees then re-cutting.  A wider stop cut can be made by tilting the  knife farther away from vertical.  So the wider the angle of the knife on the second stroke the wider the stop cut will become.

Rouging out can be done with either a chisel
or a round gouge.  The skew chisel takes out small amounts of wood with one stroke but leaves a flatter or smoother finish than the round gouge.  The round gouge is excellent for removing vast amounts of wood with one cut but will leave a ridged effect that will require shaving to smooth.

You can see the difference in the amount of wood removed in this image.  Both tools were used about the same number of times yet the round gouge side is about twice as deep.  At the top of the sail you can see how finer, lighter cuts with the round gouge will begin to smooth the background.

When choosing the direction of your cut you will need to find a balance between the direction of the wood grain and the direction of the stroke into the stop cut. Since no board is cut exactly square there is always one direction, the one going with the grain, that creates cleaner cuts.  In this sample the grain direction runs from top to bottom of the board.  The stop cuts will require a stroke that goes into that  stop cut.  For this sample it runs vertically into the sail lines.  So the final carving stroke will run in a curve starting at the top of the area into the stop cut.

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