1 3/8” x 1 5/8” x 1 5/8” Completed June 1986
The mouse is what I consider to be a classic of netsuke design, and always a favorite with crowds at carv-ing shows. This one is patterned after several antique netsuke I saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, by the famous Masanao line of netsuke carvers. This group of carvers handed down the Masanao carving name through at least seven generations, from before 1800 until about 1922. I’ve included a picture of the original in this article. The original had hair incised in tiny straight lines, but I liked the boxwood grain and color so well I left my version smooth.
I started my carving with a band-sawn block of boxwood, and roughed out the major surface levels like stair-steps (see picture above). Be sure to leave the roughed out areas a little larger than needed. You can remove wood as you go, but it’s certainly difficult to put it back. Leave yourself a margin for error.
Constantly refer to the patterns, study cast, and pictures. Measure distances with calipers or dividers, and depths with small dowels or toothpicks. As you near the finished product, be careful with metal measuring tools so you don’t scratch the carved surfaces.
Round out the details as you go, leaving the small details like eyes and feet for the last. The tail is textured with tiny, carved parallel lines, in rings along the length of the tail. Each of the rings is a different thick-ness from its neighbor; you can think of the rings as stacked paper cups. The tail should be shaped into one long tapering curve first, then the little stair-steps carved into it. If you carve the steps first, the tail will probably end up looking far too blocky. A little ingenuity or careful work with a scalpel or XActo™ knife will provide you with a suitable substitute. Incidentally, if you need a better look at a mouse, check out the neighborhood kids or take a trip to the pet department of the local department store. That’s the beauty of carving the mouse; you don’t have to go to the zoo or a taxidermist for samples.
You can carve the eyes closed or open. The Masanao versions have dark inlaid open eyes. I left mine closed, and this may be the easiest option. If you want to carve open eyes, here’s how to do it. Mice and rats don’t have any detail in the eyes that you can see, like irises or pupils. Their eyes are basically round, so I would use tiny ebony pegs to provide the black eyes. Carefully drill holes the diameter of the ebony pegs in the right locations, before you do any detailing around the eyes. I find small ball burrs provide me better control than drill bits. In any event, practice on some scrap hardwood before drilling your carving.
The holes are drilled at 45 degree angles to the front. This will make the eyes appear oval from the sides, but still be easily constructed from round pegs. Make sure the eyes line up on both sides of the head, when viewed from the front and the top of the head. You might want to use two straight pins for a trial placement before drilling. Drill well into the wood, since you’ll be carving down into the wood; you don’t want to cut below the depth of the pegs. Secure the pegs with epoxy cement. Carve the eyelids slightly bulging out from the face, and the black eyes protruding slightly beyond the eyelids.
I left my version smooth, but if you want to add hair to yours, have at it. Either way, carefully smooth all surfaces, even if you are going to add hair. I would use the inverted cone burr to apply as much hair texture as possible, held at 45 degrees to the surface. Make very light cutting strokes, parallel to each other and about 1/8 inch in length. Space the strokes as closely as you can. If you know how to draw pen and ink crosshatching, then you already know how to carve hair. You can make directional changes by slightly overlapping sets of strokes, and at slightly different angles. The hair typically runs from the tip of the nose towards the tail, and straight down the backbone. As you go farther down the sides, the hair turns more towards the belly, although it never turns at right angles to the nose-tail line. Refer to the picture of the Masanao prototype for hair direction, shown by the little arrows.
Finish your carving by soaking it in hot penetrating oil, either clear or stained, as you prefer. To get the liquid to penetrate the dense boxwood and eliminate the grain-raising effects of water based finishes, I use a Danish penetrating oil finish thinned about 50/50 with paint thinner. This generally takes at least several hours (even better overnight, if you can wait) for boxwood to absorb enough of the oil finish. Take the netsuke out periodically, dry it off and examine to “see if it’s done yet.”