I’ve had the good fortune of hanging out with Mary May at a couple Fine Woodworking events. Not only is she an incredibly talented and accomplished carver, she’s a wonderful person too. This Thursday, July 23rd, at 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time), I’m going to get the chance to spend some time with Mary online, as she has kindly asked me to be a guest on her Twitch live stream broadcast.
Mary started the live stream back in the spring with the beginning of the quarantine restrictions and has also had special guests on, including Peter Follansbee and Roy Underhill, who was last week’s guest. That’s right, I’m following Roy Underhill. And as if that weren’t hopeless enough, I have to manage an ipad. This should be good.
Basically, the idea is that anyone can go the website and watch live as I talk and demonstrate for an hour or an hour and a half or so. You can type in questions and comments, and Mary will supervise the screens and relay the questions and such to me. You can get the idea by watching Peter’s appearance (< that’s a link) which I think mine will resemble, but for the beard.
Many of Mary’s regular viewers may be unfamiliar with the idea of greenwood carving, so the plan is for me to introduce the idea of carving a bowl from green wood — a log. Obviously, given the time limit, I’ll work small and/or jump around to some pieces at various stages, demonstrating some tools and techniques. I’ll sort it out over the next few days and fit in what I can. It’s free, so you’ll get your money’s worth.
If you can’t make it Thursday afternoon, the whole thing will be available on Mary’s Twitch channel for viewing later. Whether you’re joining in live or you want to check out old broadcasts of Mary and/or her guests, here is the link to use.
Mary was way ahead of the curve with online carving instruction. For years, she has had an online carving school called Mary May’s School of Traditional Woodcarving. There’s access to tons of instructional videos, a store for carving materials, and lots more. Oh, and she also wrote a great book called Carving the Acanthus Leaf!
See you Thursday.
David Fisher, Carving Explorations 
Just tested by watching Peter’s archived presentation and I’ll be watching Thursday for sure. (May even convince Barb to watch!)
LikeLike
Thanks, Barry. Incentive to at least comb my hair.
LikeLike
Your to humble Dave,
LikeLiked by 1 person
David is that one 1:00 eastern? Kent Townsend
LikeLike
Yes, Kent, I should have mentioned that. 1:00 Eastern Time.
LikeLike
Thanks
LikeLike
Sign me up!
LikeLike
Oh and do like the Food Network Stars are doing now…they have their kids operating the electronics!
LikeLike
Sounds good, Chris. I’m sure they’ll jump at the chance.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just stumbled onto her incredible trove of teaching videos a couple of weeks ago and have started watching them, beginning with the freebies. She’s really thorough, has a great screen presence, and includes an enormous amount of information as she goes along. I look forward to seeing your presentation. I share Kent’s question as to the time zone of that “1 pm.”
LikeLike
Eastern Time, Kalia. I’ll add that to the post. So, 10:00 am in your neck of the woods. No wonder you get so much done over there, it’s always earlier!
LikeLike
Excellent Dave! I watched start to finish. It’s obvious that you are, by profession, a teacher because your presentation was so smooth and you explained everything so clearly. For me, it was a couple of hours very well spent. Thank you!
Barry
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Dave,
I finished watching the video this morning. What an excellent program!!! It helped clear up a few points I’ve had trouble with, like handle transition and base size. You make it look so effortless. Practice, practice and more practice 👍.
I do have a big ask…how about a video on sharpening? I get by but need improvement on the adze and some gouges.
Thanks again, just a wonderful video!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a good idea with the sharpening, Skip. So important. I’ll see what I can do sometime about that..
LikeLike
Thanks David, I didn’t make it for the live broadcast, a time zone thing, watched it over two nights.
I shall now spend my time developing the muscle memory needed to get the most out of the tools I already have to improve my bowl carving enjoyment.
Greg , Melbourne, ( in Covid lockdown ) Australia.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for watching, Greg. Your plan is a sound one! Happy carving.
LikeLike
Hi Dave!
It was so nice to see your demo. You mentioned something that you have been online… are there other Your videos somewhere? Like the Spoonfest last summer?
LikeLike
Glad you enjoyed the demo, Jari. Thanks. The online reference you may be referring to was probably my reference to online teaching of high school history this past spring. But, yes, I am in some other videos online. The most extensive is the Fine Woodworking video series on carving a bowl. The link to that is on this page along with some others: https://davidffisher.com/video
I need to update that page, because there are other things as well, such as the videos done at Spoonfest last year. If you search under “Dave Fisher Spoonfest” at YouTube, those should come up.
I’ve got some ideas brewing as well, so maybe more to come in the future. Thanks for your interest.
LikeLiked by 1 person