Here are some pics of my finished acanthus leaf legs. They will support a coffee table. I was not trying to copy any particular stlye--but rather just trying to improve my carving skills. The wood is walnut--and not very good quality.
Having finishing the ball/foot, I pondered adding the leafs--torn between the possibility of ruining what I already had, and the thought of not having made an attempt. So I went for it--and it was easy; it is simply a relief carving. But I'll qualify that last statement by saying that even though I was able to carve it, to carve it well will require alot more practice at the fundamentals. I specifically had trouble using the V-tools accurately and trying to round over the convex rays; and by carving them one-at-a-time, they all turned out a bit different.
Timewise, these took me a WHOLE lot of time (as in months). But the next ones will go much quicker. After cleaning these up I'll apply shellac--which will make then real pretty!! I'll post pics of the completed table in the project forumn soon.
Here are the four finished feet:
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And with the apron attached:
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And experimenting with knee blocks (I'm still working on these):
3.jpg