Whittling away the day.....

We’ve all been in social situations when you've talked with people about their jobs and some of the things they get up to and despite some fancy sounding title they usually end up doing something pretty mundane. I’m sure though if you met someone and they said they carved spoons then that really would be something different. Well, recently we not only got chance to spend a full day with someone who does this but had a go ourselves. And it was brilliant.
 
Giles Newman lives a few miles away from us and his wife works with Viv. For  a number of years we’ve followed his work on Instagram as he has developed something we think is unique and wonderful. Carving wooden spoons and jewellery doesn’t quite describe what he actually does – he creates miniature masterpieces. Visit his website if you want your eyes well and truly opened!  www.gilesnewman.com
 
Last year he started to offer workshops to people and unfortunately we couldn’t make one however we managed to make one of the first ones this year and what an outstanding experience it was.
 
Adam, Lucy , Simon and myself took part under the ever watchful expert eye of Giles himself and in the space of a day, sitting around the kitchen table, we managed to turn silverbirch logs into something we were very proud of and which I think we were amazed at too.

Not exactly knowing how the day would pan out Giles put everyone at ease straight away with a quick run through of some of his previous work and a little about the basics of the craft - as well as a comprehensive health and safety talk. Whilst we only used 2 knives all day they were of course incredibly sharp (scalpel sharp was the phrase) and we wore cut-proof gloves all the time. 
 
After an outline of how things work and some demonstrations of a few of the techniques – again safety in mind all the time  - it was time to practice on some test pieces. After getting comfortable with  the basics it was down to choosing the  piece of wood each of us would be working on and getting the design onto it. This was done with some guidance from Giles about knots and how the grain of the wood works. After about 10 minutes and some last minute changes we all had our designs sketched out on our pieces of wood.

As the son of a joiner (which I did keep getting reminded of!) I am in reality not the greatest using my hands, but the simplicity of the tools and holding the wood was actually quite relaxing and at various stages I think we all “zoned” out a little and got right into it.
 
With a great supply of coffee and tea, an endless supply of chatter, stories and laughs (whittle waffle) and a break for lunch, progress was quickly made. Giles joined in with work, starting on a new piece and made it look so easy compared to our efforts! Before we knew it several hours had passed and we had all got something in our hands that: looked like a spoon, was in line with the designs we 'd planned and which we all seemed a bit surprised that we'd actually made!

After a bit of magic with a boiled potato to dry the wood out, some sanding and a dip in a bath of Tung oil (the spoons not us!) we all had our finished spoons ready to take home (after some more photos).

It really was a full - on day but a fantastic one and I love doing stuff like this when you know you are in the presence of a real expert who helps guide and advise in a friendly way. It’s also an eye opener when you can actually do something like this to fully appreciate the skills that someone has and how they use them.
 
Giles, thank you once again for a great day.

For more of his work visit: www.gilesnewman.com 

Or follow on Instagram - @giles_newman