1 Design

It's wood. It hangs on the wall. Why not carve it?

The carving we will do here is known as cavo relievo. Essentially you leave the background (the paddle) alone and sink the carving itself below the surface. It has to be thus because the paddle needs to slide smoothly in and out on the oven shelf without bits sticking out. The Egyptians were masters of this form of carving.

Cavo Relievo is not to be confused with intaglio, which also involves carving below the surface. However the carving is usually 3-dimensionally in reverse so that an impression from the design yields the image in relief. Most often seen in print making and engraving.

Although I've put the dimensions in the download below so you can make your own pizza paddle and the flower and bee, I'm not expecting you to copy my design, and in particular the text, which is quite personal. Rather, use this carving approach and method for your own cavo relievo designs. (Keep them simple!) And, of course, you can carve in this style in many other contexts. If it's wood and doesn't move, we carvers are on it! In this lesson I introduce the project and go describe in some detail the design and how I laid out the letters.

Subscribing members will find a link to my working drawings for the pizza paddle itself, the bee and the flower carvings below.