For example, if you were to work on the carving in this picture would you purposefully layout the grain in one direction or another?
I had always thought that the carving has so many curves that there is no "best" direction to align it with the grain, that there will always be places where the grain makes something awkward. The problem is even worse given the subtleties of the grain changing direction throughout a large piece of wood. However, I am too new to carving to be certain, how do you handle this when starting a project?
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