* We're off to the forest * To see Miss Jean * She lives in a house * That is mostly green * Except for the chimney * And windows and walls * And one or two places * Just down the halls * And it's filled with rabbits * And snakes and snails * And fat little puppies * That wag their tails * And whale and tiger * And elephants too - [Boy] Well, maybe not elephants.

(Hodge Podge Lodge theme song ends) (mellow music) - Hi, I'm glad to see you at Hodge Podge Lodge today.

I have a new friend.

And I want you to look around and figure out why I invited Mister Brown to Hodge Podge Lodge today.

I bet you can.

Welcome to Hodge Podge Lodge, Bill (chuckles).

- Happy to be here.

- Amye, have you looked around and figured out why I invited this interesting man here today?

What do you think?

- Well, he brought these things right here to show us.

- He brought these to show us, right.

And why do you think?

I coulda gone to the store, and bought these things.

(giggling) Bought some things like, not these things, because these are very special.

But what's special about Bill Brown?

Jeffrey, what do you think?

- He's an artist?

- That's a very good way of saying it.

He's an artist.

What kind of artists would you say?

- A woodblock artist.

- A woodblock artist, good.

Well, you've been called lots of things, right?

- Your right.

(laughing) - How would you describe yourself, Bill?

- Woodcarver craftsman.

- Woodcarver, and woodcarving as a craft.

And do you think he's interested in nature?

- Yeah.

- How can you tell?

- Carves things out of wood?

- Out of wood, and some of them are special nature things, aren't they?

Like that one right there in front of you Jeff.

I noticed.

Would you like to feel him?

Don't move him, but feel him.

Does he remind you of anything in a story that you might've heard in school?

A famous piece of music.

- "Peter and the Wolf?"

- Right, isn't that just like the wolf in "Peter and the Wolf?"

Lean and his ribs are showing, his skin rips (laughing).

I like the way it feels because sometimes you see wood carvings that are so smooth that they're not as interesting as the way you.

- But that's one of the beauties of what I think, Miss Jean, the feel of it.

- And different things have a different feel.

- That's right.

- The wolf is sort of rough.

But this owl is smooth.

Now, did you have any particular owl in mind when you did him?

- I had several sketches.

One was from a front page of a newspaper.

Another from an ad for a commercial product.

And I just combined them into a figure that I enjoy doing.

- How'd you get started?

- I've always, I think, been interested in wood and the things that can be done with wood.

It's just a beautiful medium to play with.

And I dunno, I, as a kid, I used to do penknife whittling type things and found a book that turned me on about 10 years ago.

And been at it since.

- Have you ever tried whittling with a penknife?

- Yeah.

- Have you?

- Yeah.

- Did you make anything?

- No.

- (laughing) Well sometimes it's fun just to whittle.

- Just make sticks.

- Take a big stick and make it into little sticks.

- Right.

- But that's important because you have to learn the right way to use it so you don't chop yourself up.

(chuckling) And Bill brought some things for you kids to try.

Something that you can actually try and get your hands into it a little later, when we go over to the discovery table.

So maybe you'll get turned on and you'll take up some woodcarving.

'Cause you don't.

I see you used a piece of an old board here.

Just looked like it'd been (mumbles).

- Right, just a piece of driftwood.

- You don't have to go buy expensive wood.

- No, really no.

- Yeah, I like that.

That little scene there because you look and that, is that hare wood too?

That cowboy's hair?

- Yes, yes, it's all.

(chuckling) - The little Mexican's hair, he's not the cowboy.

It looks so almost black plastic goes.

You got such nice shine.

- The paints are just watercolors or whatever.

Some look better more natural.

- Natural, yeah, mm hmm.

And this cowboy here looks like somebody I know.

(chuckling) - His hands in his pockets.

Jeff, you brought a couple treasures today and tell us about these.

- Well this is.

- what do you know about these bones?

- Well that's a jaw bone.

And it's like a horse or a cow.

And that's a skull.

- And that's a skull.

And I don't think, I can add anything but this almost looks like a monkey skull.

But there aren't any monkeys around here.

You say your mother bought 'em at an antique auction.

Well, maybe somebody brought them back from some other country, and had them in their attic.

- Maybe.

- Lots of mystery.

(chuckling) Some skulls I can recognize but I don't know about that.

Have you ever seen a bone made out of wood?

- No.

- Well take a look over on the desk?

Yeah.

There's a wooden dog.

(chuckling) It looks like it was a real one, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

- Funny dog.

Now, how do you describe the way this kind of a carving.

- That's a caricature.

- A caricature.

Do you know that word, Amye?

- Mm-hmm (giggling).

Pretty much.

- It's a funny word.

- It simply means, taking some of the features that the animal might have and exaggerating 'em, makin' 'em more prominent.

- More humorous.

- More humorous.

- It's a light type of carving.

- They do that in the political cartoons in the newspaper all the time.

Somebody has a big nose, they make.

Sometimes they just draw the big nose and you know exactly who it is.

- Ya know exactly who it is.

(laughing) - And sometimes some other feature.

Well, speaking of animals, I have a little orphaned animal here in my basket.

Ya know it has to be very tiny 'cause it's not taking up very much room.

Would you set him back there on my desk?

- Fine.

- And I thought maybe you kids might like to help me feed him before we go over to discovery table, and take our turn at woodcarving.

Now a few days ago, one of my friends.

Well she's my friend now, but she wasn't when she called me up.

She said that she had found this poor little creature out on her front yard and she and her husband thought it might be a possum.

But when she brought it over, I decided it had to be.

What lives in trees and has it's nests in holes in trees?

And they have gray fur on them when they're growing up?

- Squirrel.

- Right, but you really, it's just hard to tell at this stage, isn't it?

His tail doesn't have any hair on it.

And you hear him making little grunting noises.

- It looks kinda bad.

(creature squeaking) - I'm trying to keep him going with some warm milk.

What did I do with my?

- In your little basket, Jean.

- Is it in the basket?

Oh a little mess we're in here.

And give him a little drink of milk before we go over to the discovery table.

I have a book that says they open their eyes when they're 19 days old.

So, you know, he's not that old yet.

This is milk, and corn syrup, and baby cereal mixed up together.

(creature squeaking) The hardest thing to do is to keep him warm enough 'cause he doesn't have any fur, or any nice warm mother to snuggle up to.

Or any brothers and sisters.

- Little little hair, on his head a little bit.

- I can see his nose is getting black.

Would you like to touch him, Jeff?

Isn't it amazing how he has.

You can see his eyes are gonna be where his eyes are going to be.

And his ears are there but they're all sorta plastered back.

Little tiny feet.

Little skinny tail.

So he seems to be doing pretty well.

So I just carry him around with me wherever I go and keep his milk warm.

He may get as big as a squirrel that Mister Brown is working on.

Would you like to go over to the discovery table and see him?

Aurora love to chew on wood, Bill, so be careful, (chuckling) you don't get any of your best specimens close to him.

- See here's the, - Here's.

- he's not finished yet.

I still have some work to do on his feet.

- And you have to paint him.

- And color him up somehow, and his tail comes off.

(laughing) - A removable tail.

- A removable tail.

- Isn't that a neat idea?

Is that something you invented?

- No, I think that's a standard, fairly typical, - A standard thing.

- When the project gets big, it can be made up of smaller pieces.

- Two pieces.

And he's gonna be an, oh!

He's gonna be up on his legs.

- Well, his tail is a little heavier than.

- Oh.

- He tends to rock back.

He'll be mounted somehow, on a piece a log maybe.

- Yeah.

Well, that's nice and here's a.

Is that a special kind of bear?

- A grizzly bear.

- A grizzly bear.

And does this remind you of funny poem, you might've heard one day, some day?

I never saw a purple cow.

Haven't you ever heard that little rhyme?

(chuckling) I never saw a purple cow.

I never hoped to see one, but I can tell you anyhow.

I'd rather see than be one.

- That's the purple cow.

(chuckling) - And here's a green spotted goat.

That's using your artistic license and imagination.

- He's reading.

- And well, is he reading or what is he doing to the book?

- Eating.

(laughing) - Eating, that's right, goats are famous for chewing up all kinds of different kinds of things.

Like I had one that liked eat the funny papers.

(giggling) What's this?

(tool tapping) - Looks like salt shaker.

(chuckling) - This is the woodcarver's mallet or hammer.

- Oh.

- And notice it's round.

That's because the woodcarver, when he picks it up and start striking the tool, doesn't have to worry where the flat part is.

It's, you always.

- It's everywhere - It's everywhere so you always hit the tool where you want to hit the tool.

- Oh, for heavens sakes.

- The woodcarver mallet, this one is a small one and for smaller work.

And it wasn't quite heavy enough so we weighted it.

Put a little bit of lead in it.

- Oh, I thought it was gonna be one of those things that they, a mortar and pestle that they grind up things with.

- It does have, that look.

Well, what is it you're gonna show us how to make?

Something like that this?

- Yes, I'm going to show you how to go through the process of making a relief carving.

These carvings are what we call, in the round.

They're three-dimensional.

They're a figure.

- You can see all the sides.

- You can see all around it.

The relief carving is another special kind of little carving.

It's trying to get the appearance of the object in just about this much wood, in a very thin raised figure of wood.

And I'm gonna walk through that process, that technique with ya, and give you a chance to try it.

- Well fine, let's see below.

- Okay.

- It's hard to believe that we're gonna get to anything that beautiful.

That's it, you gotta show us your tools.

- I thought if we can slide this over here, we can move the.

(objects rustling) - Got a lotta stuff.

(chuckling) - That's the way with most good hobbies.

They take up a lot of room.

Let's see, maybe we.

- Yeah those, right.

- These in front of me here.

All right, now we're all set.

- Now, let me just show you something about the tools.

The basic tool for the woodcarver is still the knife.

It just looks just like a paring knife or smaller blade perhaps, but it's basic.

You do most of the carving I do with the knife.

These other tools, notice this is a nice straight cutting edge right across the front.

This is called a firmer.

- It looks like a chisel.

- A chisel is another word for it.

- A firmer.

That's a new word.

- The difference between the firmer and the chisel is that it's sharpened slightly differently, but it is a chisel type tool.

Now, we can take that same firmer and curve it a little bit.

And this tool that it's called a gouge.

(chuckling) And it essentially does just that.

It gouges out wood.

- They look at that, and increase your vocabulary.

Jeff, I know you're very interested in words.

And you too, Amye.

A firmer and a gouge.

I guess you must have something there where you make all those.

- Oh yes.

- Like on the wall for you made all those.

- They come in a variety of sizes.

And for example, I can reach over here.

And here's a smaller version of the gouge.

- Aw, (giggling) that's cute.

So you could make little narrow.

- Little narrow gouge cuts.

- Ya wanna see that, Amye, that's about how he made the rough spots on the wolf and stuff.

So I'm glad to see you didn't clean up your toolkit before you came, just shows that you really do work.

(chuckling) - I'm ashamed.

Now, Jeff and Amye, what we're gonna try to do in the next few minutes, is make a little mushroom.

Notice the piece of wood I've got, is very rough.

It's rough sawn, it's called, it just hasn't been smoothed.

- Feel that children.

- Can you feel it?

I chose it because it has a contrast.

It makes the mushroom look so much nicer when it's raising out of the very rough background with the wood.

Now the first thing we'll do is draw a picture of the mushroom on the block, roughly where we want it.

This is about where.

(pencil scraping) I just draw right on the block.

It takes some time to develop the mushroom design that we're after.

But once we have the design, I can make a lot of 'em just like it with a little cardboard.

- Did you make that up yourself?

- Yes.

This is a project in one of my classes.

- So now that you've learned to wood carve, you teach it to other people.

- Yes.

- That's a good way to learn better.

(chuckling) - Now what we have to do is make cuts around this edge of this mushroom so that we can separate it from the rest of the wood.

And that I'll do with a very small firmer and my little mallet.

And I need one other.

- (chuckling) Instrument.

- Instrument.

I hold it down close to the tip of the wood and just nice, (wood popping) easy little taps.

(wood popping) And I'll outline (wood popping) the whole mushroom with vertical cuts.

(wood popping) You see what I've done?

I'm beginning to outline the whole mushroom with vertical cuts.

- All through there.

Well, I never knew that's how you started out.

And I never knew you needed one of these things.

That looks like fun.

(chuckling) - Of course, if the carving gets bigger, the mallet and tools will get bigger.

- Uh-huh, well, so-- And this, what's this little thing you have there?

A special little working.

- This little gadget, yes.

One of the cricks of doing the wood carving is try to hold the materials so that they don't move.

They're dangerous.

One could cut oneself very severely if it isn't held down.

This is called a woodcarver's hold down device.

And I can slide the block around.

It hooks over the edge of the table.

- Yes, perfect.

- You can make several of 'em of different size, and accommodate - Very neat.

- a number of projects.

I'm going to leave this one now.

Here's one that I've done all the outlining on.

I've made the vertical cuts.

It's separated from the background and now I'm gonna take some of this background away.

And that's done with the gouge.

The curved tool that I showed you before.

And what I wanna do is show you how to do this safely too.

You wanna keep your fingers behind the cutting edge.

And I usually keep my finger on the tool, so I know where it is.

And you start with little pushing cuts (wood scraping) and take these little chips off.

(wood scraping) I'll have to sweep up after we're finished.

(chuckling) - Oh that's all right.

Aurora leaves the floor, however the sunflower seeds, you are welcome to.

- I think you'll find this is a very very clean craft because the chips just sweep up.

(wood scraping) - Well that's neat.

That must be a very sharp tool.

- It is.

Now you can see that I've started the process of taking the background down.

I'll take away background out to the pencil line that I drew.

I have to go back several times and make the vertical cuts again.

'Cause I haven't, in the first try, didn't get it deep enough to do it.

- Yeah well, we can compare - We can compare with.

- with the stage.

- Right.

- See how much he's taken out on this one.

Now, are you children gonna get a chance to try it?

- Yes, now would you like to try takin' some of the background off?

Why don't I just slide it over here?

(wood banging) Weighted down here.

- Now what happens if you slip it?

Why don't you go and supervise?

'Cause I can see.

- But let me, yeah.

- One little go too far - Lemme show you.

- and take the mushroom (chuckling).

- Hold this with this hand.

Hold this up here like this.

Yeah, and just push slowly.

(wood scraping) - Oh, the little slot helps you stop.

- That's right, exactly.

- Yeah, oh right.

- Matter of fact, it's called a stop cut.

(chuckling) See?

- Oh, look at that, speedy Jeff.

- Now blow your chips away.

(breath exhaling) Great (chuckling).

Now you can see where you've been.

Okay?

There you go.

(wood scraping) Okay.

(wood scraping) There.

That's it.

That's it.

You're going to be a good wood carver.

How's that?

We'll let Amye try.

(carving sliding) Here, let's lift this up a little bit and I think it'll.

There we go.

Work on this side, Amye.

Hold this with your hand.

That's it.

That's it, start up closer to the line.

That's it.

That's it.

There ya go.

- Is it hard, Amye?

(laughing) - Okay?

- It's not very hard.

- No, it looks like pretty.

- Well the tools are very, very sharp.

- Having sharp tools is half the battle.

- There ya go.

(wood scraping) Aurora's even getting interested.

He says, boy, that looks like something I'd like to do.

- And that's, that's all there is to it.

(wood scraping) One thing I wanna mention, the background.

As we gouge these little marks out, if you notice you can see that it makes a pattern.

Well, those patterns become part of the design.

- Part of the design, yes, that's what I was admiring because that's what I like about the wolf and the bear.

You can actually see where the tools have been.

The design.

- I could use a smaller gouge and make a different pattern.

- That looks like what you've done.

- That's what I've done with this one, see?

Now this mushroom has been removed from the background, or the background removed from the wood.

So the mushroom stands out.

Now I can start makin' it look like a mushroom, but notice the background's a little different from the one we were workin' on.

Just a different tool and a different effect.

- I know there's just not as something, how good it smells.

- This is basswood.

(chuckling) And it does have a good, good smell.

Now what I'd like to do, let's put this one aside.

Let's make out, we've taken that figure and raised the background this far.

Now let's shape it.

We're gonna make it look like a mushroom.

First thing I'll do here is draw on it a little bit more.

I'll go back to the little picture I had.

We wanna try to make this mushroom look like it's a full sized mushroom growing out of the back of the wood.

- That you can just reach in and pick it.

(chuckling) - And we'll draw some lines on it to where that edge is.

There.

And the shaping process, I'll use the firmer and I'll use the gouges again.

And I'll do the same thing.

Notice I'll hold it back here and start to shape this mushroom.

Give it some mushroom type shapes.

- Oo it's getting round already.

Here take a look at that, children, and you can see what he's doing.

- It doesn't feel nice and soft.

- I know, I thought that Bill had used sandpaper, but he says, no, it's all done with tools.

- That's right.

- It's good.

- Now you can see what he meant by having the rough background with a smooth mushroom popping right outta the middle of it.

(wood scraping) And even the knothole adds to the effect.

(wood scraping) - Now what we'll do is we'll, let's take a little bit of this out, so you can see how that is gonna look.

Let's use a small gouge for that purpose.

- And this was the underneath of the mushroom where the gills are.

- Right, we wanna make the mushroom disappear into the block of wood by moving this back edge into the background.

- Oh, look at those neat curls.

When I was a little girl, and the hired men used to be working on something in the workshop, we'd hang those curls over our ears.

(chuckling) Ya ever do that, Amye?

They were long thick curls from boards.

(chuckling) (wood scraping) Well, the next time you see a woodcarving somewhere, I bet you'll stop and take a second look, won't you?

And think about what it looked like in the beginning and all the different tools that were used on it.

And maybe what the artist was like because everybody does his own thing.

Here's a beautiful moose.

I bet something like that is pretty tricky.

You get to a point where the antlers (chuckling) might break off or something.

Are they pegged in?

- Yes, the antlers are separate.

There's a school of woodcarver who says that you should make all of your projects outta one block of wood.

I haven't quite.

(chuckling) - Well, what difference does it make?

It turns out so well.

Here we are.

- Would you like to try usin' the gouge and shape it a little bit?

Lemme come around and show you again.

Now this tool, Amye's using exactly the same way and you just slide it along, like so, okay?

(wood scraping) We got the corner hooked under there.

Let's get rid of it first.

- Soon as you come - Because that has - to a tough spot in the wood.

- to happen sooner or later anyhow.

See how you guys need it.

Nice, smooth chips.

- You have to know when to stop, right?

(chuckling) - The beginner usually stops too soon.

And then we raise it up a little bit and we sorta hollow it out.

We want real dynamic shape to it.

- Well, thank you very much.

Keep on working with Amye.

That's fine.

I just have to say goodbye to my friends.

I hope you enjoyed meeting Bill Brown and seeing some of the many things that go into woodcarving.

And maybe you can try your hand at a simple project.

Maybe a mushroom.

Make a mushroom come right out of a little block of wood.

But be very careful 'cause the tools are sharp.

Thanks for coming and come back soon again - There ya are.

- to the Hodge Podge Lodge.

(mellow music) - [Child] This program was made possible through funds contributed by members of The Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting.

(horns tooting) - [Announcer] Pre-recorded in the studios of The Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting.