How I Make a Cypress Knee Santa

This is is a brief description of how I make a cypress knee santa. I start out with a basic cypress knee from the swamps of Georgia. When I obtain a cypress knee I always set it aside and study it for quite some time, looking at the grain, the flow of the wood, the imperfections, along with the humps and bumps. I do this because I want to try to incorporate any of these details into the carving I intend to do. Usually I can see the santa in the knee before I start and then all I have to do is carve away everything else. The knee that I used for this cypress knee santa is exactly 2 feet tall.

Carving the cypress knee santa

Here I have removed most of the bark and some of the skin. I have made some initial cuts to begin the nose and eyes.

In the photo below I have roughed out the nose, eyes and the top of the mustache.

In the photo below I have roughed out the eyebrows, located the bottom lip, and roughly outlined the flow of the beard. Here again I try to use the natural flow of the grain, swirling around knots, humps and bumps.

Below, I have carved most of the features and am fairly satisfied that Santa is going to be able to escape the knee. Now it’s just a matter of carving some fine detail and finishing the beard.

Most of the carving is now done. But I still need to carve out the rest of the beard and put in some hair lines. I will also add some details to the face such as wrinkles, because he has been hidden in this knee for quite some time.

The completed santa

After a lot of smoothing I add some paint. I like to see the wood grain through the paint so I use only what I need to achieve that effect.

Lastly I sign the carving on the bottom, and that completes the job. Merry Christmas!

If you have any comments or questions about making a cypress knee santa, please leave them in the comments section below. If you like this article please share it using the share buttons on this page. We have plenty of other projects in our Workshop, so take a look.