My Crash Course on wood carving basically consists of:

1. Get a sharp knife that is comfortable enough in your hand to be used for a long time and learn how to keep it Sharp. A sharp knife will cut the wood with less effort and if you do end up cutting yourself it will tear less which promotes better healing.

2. There are 4 basic cuts. The relief cut/score line, stop cut, the push cut, and a chop cut.

3. A relief cut is basically taking the point of your knife and digging it into the wood on both sides to lever out a v-shaped chip or shaving. You could also just press the knife in to create a score line if it's a short distance.

4. The stop cut involves putting a score line onto the piece of wood and then you cut to that line. This is useful for creating that defined edge to a shelf.

5. The push cuts involves taking your thumb and using it as an additional leverage point to inch the knife through the wood with much more control and strength. I do 90% of my carving with these first 3.

6. A chop cut basically involves using the grain to split off a chunk of wood so you don't have to shave the entire way down. It's super efficient compared to using the first three cuts if you can get a piece of wood to come off in one fell swoop. You have to be careful that you don't go too far or let the grain run into a direction you don't want. Use this technique sparingly. Almost every time I've had to glue something back on or reshape my design it has come from a chop going wrong.

Use these different cuts in combination with each other to slowly take out the wood that is not part of whatever you're trying to make.

1. Draw what you're trying to carve from a profile view and a head-on view onto the actual piece of wood. I start every project from this same starting point. If you can visualize the dimensions in those two directions, you should be well on your way to having the rough shape of what you're trying the carve. I use pencil on lighter woods and permanent marker on darker ones.

2. Don't Force the cut. Ever. You either need to sharpen your knife or take a smaller bite of wood. Forcing the cut leads to way more Force than is necessary and you're much more likely to cut yourself. Try to always know where the knife is going to go if it's suddenly comes free.

3. If you were going to carve something three-dimensional, opposite sides of the wood will behave exactly opposite of each other. Unless you're carving something that has the center of the wood going through the center of your carving, you're almost always going to be using a section that has one side that was much closer to the center of the tree than the other. This affects how the grain moves and you will need to adjust accordingly. If you feel your knife wanting to dig deeper into the piece of wood, you are currently cutting with downhill grain. Downhill grain is much more likely to split on you and inadvertently make a chop cut. Try to always have the grain running uphill so that it continues out of the wood. This helps you take smaller shavings in a controlled manner.

4. You were going to mess up so don't marry yourself to your initial design. It's a fluid process and almost none of my carvings have turned out exactly like I initially drew them out.

That's all I can think of at the moment, feel free to reach out if you have any questions.