Carving a Balsa Wood Sculpture

Clara Lieu
Art Prof & Partner

♪ Prof Lieu’s Studio Playlist ♪

Annelise Yee
Jeweler & Designer

Utility Knives are extremely sharp and it’s really easy to cut yourself by accident!  Always wear a kevlar glove on your hand which is not holding the knife to prevent injuries. 

Supplies

Marie Latham
Intern

“This project really made me think on the fly! It was fun to jump right into a very kinesthetic process, where I really had to feel the wood to understand how to shape it. It was also super messy, which helped me loosen up a bit and forget I was working with a medium that I couldn’t really add anything back to.

I think one of the best & worst parts about the challenge with this process was how easy it was to carve away the wood—it doesn’t leave any time to reconsider certain moves, and once something is cut away, you need to react accordingly with the other planes on the sculpture.”

Cindy Qiao
Project Assistant

“This project was an interesting challenging and definitely made me venture into very different territory that I hadn’t explored that much before. Usually, I stick with very 2D visual work, like painting and drawing, but I’ve never worked with a knife to carve away at a material.

This was such an interesting project as a whole because there wasn’t much planning involved in the beginning at all. It was really just about the balsa wood and sort of just following the texture of it.:

Christina Wu
Intern

“I’ve worked with wood before, but this was my first time using balsa wood and I was really surprised with how soft it was to carve, as well as the fact that I didn’t need any fancy sharp wood-cutting tools but can rely on just a heavy utility knife.

This project was definitely a risk for me since I always like to plan things out in a sketchbook before I start, so it felt really weird to just start carving with no idea what I was trying to accomplish. I found one side of the wood to be harder to carve due to its graininess, while the other side was extremely soft, so my sculpture actually turned out rather flat and not as aesthetically-pleasing on one side.”