Carving a Hippy Walking Stick

I still have quite a few carvings that I haven't had time for posting but I'm getting them up as fast as time allows. The video above is about a hippy walking stick that I carved a month ago for our annual fundraiser auction and fierce bidding to the very last seconds brought in $65.00 from the new owner.

I've carved tons of woodspirit and Indian walking sticks over the years but suddenly this idea to

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carve a hippy walking stick hit me and what a lot of fun that it ended up becoming! The further the carving went along the more hilarious that it seemed to get as you can see from the colored bead necklace and the love beads that I added to the wrist strap.


Other than the idea to carve a "hippy" this is one of those projects that sort of invented itself and my carving hands just happened to be there for the ride. :) I used a nice red maple stick that I'd been curing for about 8 months and it was a pure pleasure to carve. Usually I opt to remove the bark from maple but it showed every sign of being very firmly attached so I left it on although when doing so I always lightly sand it with 220 grit, steel wool, then I rub in a very thin coating of polyurethane and shine it up "wet" until it leaves the bark with a very desirable flat luster of a shine. The new owner of the stick expressed the utmost satisfaction from how I'd applied the finish and wondered how I did it.


I finished the hippy with thinned acrylic paints that were carefully layered with Krylon acrylic
sealer. I'll be making more of these in the future!