How To Carve Realistic Faces In Wood

Learn to see the face before making the next cut.

A realistic wooden portrait begins with the relationships between the brow, nose, cheeks, mouth, and chin. This practical guide helps you study those relationships, establish the large forms, and refine the details that give a face its character.
Jorja Sleigh takes you through tools, wood selection, safe workholding, reference preparation, facial landmarks, and blocking the head. Explore eyes, noses, mouths, and ears, then develop expression, age, hair, texture, finishing, and display.

Put the approach into practice with 30 projects, from a calm front-view face and a gentle smile to turned portraits, relief plaques, theatre masks, and a final realistic portrait bust. Each project includes tools and materials, preparation, a step-by-step sequence, quality checks, troubleshooting, and care guidance.

Inside, you will explore how to:

• Map proportion and compare depth from several viewpoints.
• Build features from connected masses rather than isolated grooves.
• Use expression, asymmetry, and selective texture to suggest character.
• Recognize structural errors before adding fine detail.
• Prepare, finish, and display your carving with care.