RGV Carving show

Carving is one of the many activities that people pursue when spending time here in the 'Valley'. Some people start out with a stick and an old pocket knife. Whittling away on a tree branch you can end up with a pile of wood chips and a nice toothpick. LOL.

Others take it a few steps further and get a set of carving knives, a slab of basswood and end up with something like this...

This is one of my first carvings, a relief carving.

Still, others pursue it with a great passion and complete some carved pieces worthy of an art show.

The 'Valley' has two carving shows, one in January and one in February. We visited the one in San Juan today and saw some beautiful and extremely well crafted carvings.

The carvings above and below were entered in a contest to be judged by a carving expert. Ribbons are given for 'Best of Show', 'People's choice' and 1st, 2nd and third places.

Many carvers enhance their work with pyrography (wood burning) and painting.


The buffalo is a piece that is almost complete. It is a piece of 1" thick basswood that has four levels of relief. I used a Colwood Wood burner and acrylic paints that were thinned with water.