How to carve a wood elephant?

All you need to start your wood carving is to have some basic tools and find some projects to make. In this blog we want to share with you about how to carve a wood elephant.

Whittle these adorable pieces for your friends and family—and keep one for yourself. Trace the pattern onto the blank, and cut the perimeter with a band saw, scroll saw, or coping saw. Draw the detail lines and a centerline onto the blank.

Wood carving tools and materials:

• Basswood, 3/4 ” (1.9cm) thick: 1″ x 1 3/4 ” (2.5cm x 4.4cm)
• Acrylic paints (optional)
• Stain and wood conditioner (optional)
• Polyurethane
• Saw: coping, band, or scroll (optional)
• Knife
• Paintbrushes

Carve the trunk. Use paring cuts. Taper and round the elephant’s trunk toward the tip, the top of its head, and the centerline. Make stop cuts at the lines defining the elephant’s ears. Using paring cuts, remove wood up to these stop cuts.

Make shallow stop cuts at the sides of the elephant’s tail. Remove thin slices of wood to these stop cuts to make the tail stand out from the rump. Begin to round the elephant’s back and rump toward the centerline.

Shape the feet. You can separate the legs, or leave them connected for stability.

Separate the ears on the top of the head. Round the
elephant’s back, belly, neck, head, and legs.

Clean up the body. It may be necessary to scrub the elephant with a stiff brush (such as a denture brush), warm water, and liquid detergent to remove pencil marks, dirt, or wood
“fuzzies” at the bottom of cuts. If you scrub the piece, let it dry before applying a finish.

There are several ways to finish the baby elephant: sand it smooth, leave the knife cuts visible in a flat-plane style, stain it, or paint it. Mix and match these finishing techniques or leave the baby elephant unfinished. I chose to paint the elephant gray, its eyes white, and its pupils black.