Carved and Painted Cardinal

Description

Artist Tony Dills hand carves and paints his birds and attaches them to pieces of wood.  Nature has always been an important part of Tony’s life. He worked for 30 years with the animals at the WNC Nature Center, and has had an interest in bird carving since he was a teenager. Edsel Martin, renowned whittler, was one of Tony’s first carving teachers. “Edsel showed me how to carve birds; he’d carve half a bird and give it to me and let me carve the other side. I learned quite a bit about carving birds from Edsel.”