Three-Part Figure Study Relief

A fragmented study of the human body, carved as three floating moments on a single rounded panel. Despite the workshop tags, this isn't a lattice tray at all. The relief reads as an artistic figure study: a woman's head turned in profile at the top, her hair swept back over bare shoulders and the sculpted planes of an upper back; below that, a smooth rounded rear; and near the base, a bare foot cradled in an open hand. Each element sits proud of a softly domed, capsule-shaped field with generous negative space between them, so the eye travels down the panel like reading a poem in three lines. The modelling is tasteful and anatomical rather than graphic, the kind of contemplative nude you'd expect from a life-drawing class translated into wood. It suits a private study, an artist's wall, or a gallery-style display where the interplay of skin, shadow and empty ground does the talking. Cut notes • Machine as a shallow-to-medium relief; a 3mm–6mm ball-nose finishing pass keeps the transitions on the back and buttocks buttery smooth. • A close-grained hardwood (lime, cherry, maple) or a dense modelling board holds the subtle tonal gradients far better than open-grain oak. • Keep the tool stepover tight around the hair and toes where detail concentrates; everything else is broad, forgiving form. • Finish with fine sanding and a matte oil or wax so raking light, not gloss, defines the anatomy.