You will notice that I have not said anything about templates, which is because I am emphatically anti-template. I used them early on in my spoon carving, and I feel like they stifled my growth as a carver, keeping my work from undergoing the evolution in both design and skill that pushes it forward. I felt like using a template was shutting my brain off. For the past five years, I have drawn every single spoon and spoon blank I’ve made freehand, and the growth in my work that has occurred in that time has been partly down to this practice. Even when a form feels settled in my mind, and I’ve carved dozens or even hundreds of them, drawing them fresh each time both clarifies what I want and allows new ideas to creep up on me. When I was using a template, my work improved within the given form, but it did not take these leaps forward in design and understanding.
– Emmet Van Driesche, Greenwood Spoon Carving (Pre-order your copy before July 3rd for free domestic shipping!)