Wooden Architecture

As a contemporary artistic medium, wood is used in traditional and modern styles, and is an excellent medium for new art. Wood is used in forms of sculpture, craft, and decoration including chip carving, wood burning, and marquetry. Wood offers a fascination, beauty, and complexity in the grain, that often shows even when the medium is painted. Wood is used by carpenters to create many useful items such as cabinets, furniture and musical instruments. Artists use wood for sculpture because it is plentiful and inexpensive when compared to other media like stone or bronze. It is in some ways easier to shape than harder substances, but an artist must develop specific skills to carve it properly. Wood does not last as long as other sculpting media because it can be affected by water rot, dry rot, insect invasion and fire.
A person who begins woodcarving is challenged to learn to work with the fiber and grain. Hardness and fragility vary with the species of wood. In general, wood tends to break in the "split direction", the direction in which the fibers separate. In the composition of work, one must work with and around this. Each direction of cut feels and works differently. Sharp tools are essential in allowing the artist's sense to shape the material.
Planks of wood are said to be quarter-sawn when the growth rings are more or less at right angles to the thickness. If the growth rings are more parallel to the width, then the plank is said to be slab-cut. While slab-cut planks are seasoning, they tend to cup in a direction so as to "straighten" the growth rings.