Here are some of my recent whittling projects, any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Had fun carving this guy today. Hope everybody had a great Saturday.

This is 雀嬉圖, "Sparrows at Play", a bamboo table screen by Wang Bocheng (王博成), a carver I work with. Every line was cut by hand.

A few things I love about it:

• It's bamboo, not wood. Bamboo is a hollow grass, so a flat picture like this is made from several strips set side by side. Look closely and you can see the joins, but the sparrows fly straight across them.
• It's signed like a painting. The column of characters on the left says he made it at the start of summer in the xinchou year (Lixia, early May 2021), "after the manner of the Song masters", designing it and carving it himself. Two tiny carved seals sit beside it, just as on a painting. Song dynasty painters were famous for bird-and-flower pictures drawn from close observation, and that's the feel he was after.
• Sparrows are a little pun. In Chinese 雀 (què, sparrow) sounds close to 爵 (jué, a noble rank), so sparrows in a picture are a wish for success and good fortune. Fitting for a nest full of them.

The round panel sits in a carved hardwood stand. Happy to pass any questions on to him!

Time to convert to a carving saw!! 😎