St. Charles Area Woodcarvers Copyright © 2004. All rights reserved.
	Since 1985

Table of Contents: Club News Coming Events Show and Tell Recommended Resources Dues Reminder Seminars Meeting Location Member Web Page Update

Club News: The club is now meeting twice a month - the first and third Wednesdays at 7pm!      The Club continues to get involved in events in the community. The Club has been invited to participate in a 6 week Art Show by the St. Charles County Arts Center. The Art Gallery is holding a show which will display works of art including paintings, sculpture, and photography. There will be an opening reception on March 14 from 6pm to 8pm. There will be 8-10 woodcarvings from our club in the display. The Club will also be a part of the City of O'Fallon's Founders Day Celebration on May 2, 2009. We will be teaching soap carving to children of all ages from 10am to 4pm at Fort Zumwalt Park. There will be a 50 cent charge to cover the cost of the soap. Wyatt Sample Coming Events:back to table of contents Moe Schmitz's "Carving a Cookie Mold" class will be held on the second meeting in February. February 18. So plan on attending the meeting, you won't want to miss this class. Show and Tell: back to table of contents We've got a few catch-up pictures from show-n-tells before Christmas that missed earlier newsletters. Ray Plodzien's Halloween carving, Bob Craven's patriotic Eagle and American Flag, and Moe Schmitz's Bull and Bear fight relief carving. Bob Berg's Santa from a Harley Smitgen roughout, Don and Dee Kley's Santas, and Pat Bauman's snowmen. Charlie Sapp's wife made him this commemorative book for Christmas to remember his first 10 years of carving.   These pictures are of a fan hummingbird carved by Brian Ellison. The birds are carved from wet white cedar. Brian was instructed by Sally and David Nye who specialize in fan carving.   These pictures are of a Kestral carved by one of the club's foremost wildlife carvers, Jack Combs.   These pictures are two views of a walking stick carved by Corky Breece.   The first carving is by our Montana member, Ed Dinges. He described it "here is a picture of a cane that I made. It has a miniature Purple heart Medal set into the handle. It is carved from Bass wood with the profile of Viet Nam on the front of the cane and on the back the helmet on the rifle with the number 58,235 above it. It helped me get rid of some bad memories from the past." The second carving is a group of wood spirits carved by Charles Adams from sassafras. Recommended Resources:back to table of contents The following two links are to sources of carving woods. Heineke comes to the Belleville woodcarving show each year and to other shows and provides excellent wood. Slim also comes to the Belleville show and has also attended our woodcarving shows. Heinecke Wood Slim's Woodshed Lynn Doughty is a western carver living in Oklahoma. He does a blog which provides tutorial on how he carves his characters with detailed instruction. There is no cost to the blog. It is a great resource,check it out at Out West Woodcarving. The following pictures are examples of some of the carvings that he gives specific instruction on. Gene Messar is a Flat Plane carver living on the Texas/Louisiana border. He has done a number of videos on youtube demonstrating the carving of santas, snowmen, Rufus and Sadie, hillbilly, wizard, hobo, halloween ghost, a scene with a dog treeing a raccoon in a tree and others. The following is a picture of some of his carvings. Each carving is demonstrated in a series of short videos. If you have high speed internet these videos are free and helpful. It is a great resource, check it out at Whittler0507 Dues:back to table of contents The "rent fee" has of $1/meeting has been eliminated. There is no longer any fee charged at the meetings.  It is time to pay your dues for 2009 Club dues are $15.00 per year and include the website and electronic newsletter.  Contact the Membership Chairman, Charles Sapp, or Treasurer Bob Craven. Seminars:back to table of contents          Corky Breece, Seminar Chairman Corky planned several great seminars in 2008. He has done a great job. Thanks Corky! Corky is now working on the schedule for 2009.  If you have any suggestions, please get in touch with him.    For seminars - the doors open in the morning at 8:30am and in the evening at 5:00pm.  Typically classes during the day will be conducted from 9am to 5pm and in the evening from 5:00pm to 9pm.   Ask your instructor for exact times.   Bob Bierman provided a seminar on January 23-25. Ten carvers attended the seminar, each carving one of his caricature Santa Clauses Bob provided several versions of his caricature Santa for the carvers to choose from. Several of the options are shown below. After his paint class, which is coming up, we should see some of these finished Santas in show-n-tell. Santa with a birds nest Santa with a lantern Santa with a bear Bob will be providing a painting class on February 21, for the carvers to paint the Santas and for others to bring in carvings that need painting. It does not have to be one of Bob's carving projects. The cost of the class is $10 Participants need to bring their painting supplies to the class. Meeting Time and Location:back to table of contents Meetings are held at 7:00 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of each month. The meetings include a brief business meeting followed by a carving session. The meeting location has changed. Meetings are now held at the Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project at 7295 Highway 94 South St. Charles, Missouri 63304. Visitors are always welcome! Saturday carving is being held on the Saturday prior to the third Wednesday of each month. Saturday carving is also held at the Weldon Spring Site. Visitors are always welcome! Weldon Spring Department of Energy site.  From highway 40/61 or I-70 exit highway 94 and continue south toward Defiance.  It is just past the Francis Howell High School.  When you see a Quonset hut on the right hand side it is the next driveway / facility.       Member Web Pages-Update: back to table of contents New members - be sure to get with Wyatt Sample and provide him with some pictures of your work and a background write up for the website.  All Members, please feel free to update the information for your page on the website any time. Just send an email to the webmaster, Wyatt Sample,(link at bottom of page) with any new information about yourself. Please provide some information about any new carving you want displayed and either send in a digital picture or bring in a picture of your carving to be scanned. You can look through the other member pages to see what type of information others have provided. Contact us for more information on the club or activities.  For questions regarding this Web Site, contact Webmaster: Wyatt Sample