Blog Tag

Grinling Gibbons

Every blog article tagged Grinling Gibbons.

August 6, 2026

Applied carving or carving in the solid: how I choose

An applied onlay is carved on its own board and glued on, while carving in the solid cuts the ornament into the piece itself. Here is how I choose between them at the bench.

July 24, 2026

Who teaches Grinling Gibbons style wood carving?

How I teach Grinling Gibbons style wood carving I teach Grinling Gibbons style wood carving in my own carving school, and I want to be straight with you about what this work asks of a person. Plenty of people can carve a simple flower in an afternoon. This is different. My name is Alexander Grabovetskiy, and when you come to my bench, we work the old way, with hand tools, real wood, and the patience to do it right.

December 7, 2023

From Russia to America, and What I Carve Now

Alexander Grabovetskiy is a master wood carver, born in 1973 in Dimitrovgrad in the Russian part of the Soviet Union. His great-grandfather built mahogany furniture in the Chippendale style. He ruined his own grandfather's chisel on a brick at six, became the only student of the carver Vladimir Tokarev at sixteen, and reached the United States as a refugee on 15 March 1996 with almost no English. He built the woodworking firm Aalmark in Indiana, hired other refugee woodworkers, then sold every machine to carve full time. In 2012 a panel called Wall Decoration took first place and made him International Woodcarver of the Year.

January 10, 2023

Wood carving techniques that change the work, and the order to learn them

Six moves decide how a carving reads from across a room, and they are worth wildly different amounts. Depth first, then the surface, then what the steel leaves behind. Here is the order I teach them in.

November 14, 2022

What is the best wood for carving, and the four I keep in the shop

Basswood at 410 lbf, and it is not close for a beginner. Here are the real Janka numbers for butternut, walnut and white oak, how to read a board at the yard, and the one board type I ask nobody to bring to class.

July 20, 2021

Woodcarving class in person at Marc Adams School of Woodworking

Five days at a bench in Johnson County farmland, carving a four layer panel in the Grinling Gibbons style out of limewood. Here is what the week is really like, what to bring, and how a Gibbons panel gets finished before Friday.