MORE CHINESE WOODCARVINGS

I love these things. They're carved from large bamboo roots. The ridges of the root and the little hairy root stragglers and feelers are incorporated into the designs too. Each one has to be unique to fit around the shape of the bamboo root they're working with. This one has glasses frames and little whiskers, all from a single piece of bamboo.

Since bamboo has hollow segmented sections they don't have much surface to work with for their designs, but you'd never know it by looking at them. These things fascinate me. Having done some woodcarving myself I realize how difficult and intimidating it would be to do something like this. You'd have to have your plan worked out from beginning to end before you ever started. If you went too deep and punctured through to the hollow middle you'd ruin the entire project.

Look at this tiny bicycle made out of wood! Look at it! Those spokes are thinner than toothpicks. The entire bicycle was around 7 or 8 inches tall from what I remember.

I couldn't get close enough to pick up the detail with my camera, but you can kind of get an idea. When I looked at it in person I remember the pedals and how it looked like they would really turn.

I think this started out as a hollow log, and they carved it into a net with lobsters all over it. Everywhere you looked you could see thin, fragile slivers of wood and tiny details. How they did that without breaking it I'll never know.

Here's a closer view. This piece was pretty big. The lobsters were basically full scale. I think the entire thing was taller than me. I couldn't look at the back side since it was in a glass case, but it looked like there were hidden details down inside it too.