THAI WOODCARVING

Wood carving

Wood Carving: is an art form, includes any kind of sculpture in wood, from the decorative bas-relief on small objects to life-size figures in the round, furniture, and architectural decorations. The woods used vary greatly in hardness and grain. The most commonly employed woods include boxwood, pine, pear, walnut, willow, oak, and ebony. The tools are simple gouges, chisels, wooden mallets, and pointed instruments. Although they were universally one of the earliest art media, wood carvings have withstood poorly the vicissitudes of time and climate. A few ancient examples have been preserved in the dry climate of Egypt, e.g., the wooden statue of Sheik-el-Beled (Cairo) from the Old Kingdom.

Thai woodcarving: Thai Lanna’s artisan way. Elephant carving is very popular in the art of Lanna. Chiang Mai, the Lanna Empire, is the most important city of the Northern Thailand where is the gathering of local artisans and the center of invaluable handicrafts. "Wooden carvings" is considered one of the finest traditional handicrafts that reflect the civilized northern people’s way of life. You can find woodcarving items in many districts of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Many old craftsmen, who worked for genuine fine arts, passed away. Furthermore, the young ones prefer to operate commercial works to afford more money for their lives. Woodcarvings of Northern Thailand. This art form in Thailand originated from the temples where religious objects such as Buddha images and pulpits were finely carved. Royal regalia for the court and household objects used by the nobility were also decorated with carving in temple buildings, the doors, shutters, gables and triangular brackets supporting the overhanging roofs were often intricately carved with animal and plant motifs. Some of the best examples of carvings in Chiang Mai, Thailand are at Wat Duang Di, Wat Saen Fang and Wat Inthrawat (Wat Ton Khwen). Nowadays craftsmen specialize in just one type of carving used in the decoration of a viharn. However the modern woodcarving industry itself is a development of only the last few decades.

Genuine Burmese Teak is the common name for “Tectona grandis”, a large deciduous tree of the family Verbenaceae, or its wood, one of the most valuable timbers. Teak has been widely used in India for more than 2,000 years. The name teak is from the Malayan word tekka. The tree has a straight, but often buttressed, stem (i.e., thickened at the base, a spreading crown, and four-sided branch lets with large quadrangular pith. The leaves are opposite or sometimes whorled in young specimens, about 0.5 meter (1.5 feet) long and 23 centimeters (9 inches) wide. In shape they resemble those of the tobacco plant, but their substance is hard and the surface rough. The branches terminate in many small white flowers in large, erect, cross-branched panicles. The fruit is a drupe (fleshy, with a stony seed), two-thirds of an inch in diameter. The bark of the stem is about 1.3 cm thick, gray or brownish gray, the sapwood white; the unseasoned heartwood has a pleasant and strong aromatic fragrance and a beautiful golden-yellow colour, which on seasoning darkens into brown, mottled with darker streaks. The timber retains its aromatic fragrance to a great age. Native to India, Burma, and Thailand, the tree grows as far north as about the 25th parallel in these areas and to the 32nd parallel in the Punjab. The tree is not found near the coast; the most valuable forests are on low hills up to about 3,000 feet. Stands are also found in the Philippines and in Java and elsewhere in the Malay Archipelago. Teak is also planted in Africa and Central America. During the dry season the tree is leafless; in hot localities the leaves fall in January, but in moist places the tree remains green until March. At the end of the dry season, when the first monsoon rains fall, the new foliage emerges. Although the tree flowers freely, few seeds are produced because many of the flowers are sterile. The forest fires of the dry season after the seeds have ripened and have partly fallen, impede the spread of the tree by self-sown seed. Teak trees on good soil have attained an average height of 18 m in 15 years, with a girth, breast high, of 0.5 m. In the natural forests teak timber with a girth of about 2 m (diameter of 0.6 m) is never less than 100 and often more than 200 years old. Mature trees are usually not more than 150 ft high. Due to the oil and rubber found naturally in the wood, teak has a greater ability to withstand the elements than any other wood. For this reason it has been the preferred choice for boats, and in fact, it has been used on aircraft carrier decks! This is because of its ability to resist splintering, warping and rotting. (If left un-oiled, our furniture will turn a soft dove gray when allowed to remain outdoors. This process will take approximately one year.)

Teak timber is valued in warm countries principally for its extraordinary durability. The timber is practically imperishable under cover. Teakwood is well know since early/ancient times as a valuable resource due to its long life reliability and weather resistance as well as its workable qualities. Pieces of teak have been found (in India) over 200 years old and still intact. Teakwood is used for shipbuilding, fine furniture, door and window frames, wharves, bridges, cooling-tower louvers, flooring, paneling, railway cars, and Venetian blinds. An important property of teak is its extremely good dimensional stability. It is strong, of medium weight, and of average hardness. Termites eat the sapwood but rarely attack the heartwood; it is not, however, completely resistant to marine borers. Teak also refers specifically to the wood and its characteristic color, which ranges from olive to yellowish gray or moderate brown. Teak furniture dates back prior to the 19th century used mainly by the Chinese for export to Europe. The Victorian era also incorporated the use of teakwood during the mechanical era of the 1840’s with the invention of presses, veneer cutters etc which enabled them to create decorative elegant high class furniture. Another factor here is transportation (shipping) was also becoming more advanced. Burma produces most of the world’s supply, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) ranking next in production.

Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool held in the hand (this may be a power tool), resulting in a wooden figure or figurine (this may be abstract in nature) or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object. The phrase may also refer to the finished product, from individual sculptures, to hand-worked mouldings composing part of a tracery.

Methods and styles of wood carving

• Chip carving
• Relief carving
• Scandinavian flat-plane
• Caricature carving
• Love spoon
• Treen
• Whittling

เสน่ห์และเอกลักษณ์ของงานแกะสลักไม้

เสน่ห์และเอกลักษณ์ของงานแกะสลักไม้ ไม้แกะสลัก แต่ละชิ้นจะมีเอกลักษณ์เฉพาะตัว และมีเสน่ห์ในตัวมันเอง ผลงานของ ไม้แกะสลัก จะสามารถชมได้นานๆ ศิลปะของการ แกะสลักไม้ อยู่ที่ว่าการฝานเนื้อไม้ ที่ไม่ต้องการเอาออก และอย่างไรและไม่มากไปกว่านั้น ในแต่ละครั้งของการแกะสลัก เพราะเมื่อสกัดเนื้อไม้ออกไปแล้ว มันไม่สามารถ ทากาวกลับไปใหม่ได้

ประเภทของการแกะสลักไม้
การแกะสลักภาพลายเส้น เป็นการเซาะร่องตามลวดลายของเส้นให้มีความหนักเบา เท่ากันตลอดทั้งแผ่น

Bas reliefe
การแกะสลักภาพนูนต่ำ เป็นการแกะสลักภาพให้นูนขึ้นสูงจากพื้นแผ่นของไม้เพียง เล็กน้อย ไม่แบนราบเหมือนภาพลายเส้น และอาจจะแกะสลักลึกลงไปในวัสดุไม้ หรือบางทีก็เรียกว่า" ประติมากรรมร่องลึก"

Hight reliefe
การแกะสลักภาพนูนสูง เป็นการแกะสลักภาพให้ลอยสูงขึ้นมาเกือบสมบูรณ์เต็มตัว ความละเอียดของภาพมีมากกว่าภาพนูนต่ำ

Rounf reliefe
การแกะสลักภาพลอยตัว เป็นการแกะสลักไม้ให้มีลักษณะเป็น 3 มิติ มองเห็นได้ รอบด้าน มีความละเอียดและสมบูรณ์ มีฐานรองรับอยู่ทางท่อนล่าง

source: wikipedia, woodroyal.com