INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Gouges can be used to carve into wood or to remove wood around a design to bring the design into relief. Gouges have curved points and long handles, but they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Pick a couple that will work for your project. There are 8 standards of degrees to the curves of gouge chisels. These vary from a very slight curve to a chisel tip the is a half circle. Each curve also comes in a variety of widths, so you will have a wide variety of chisels to choose from. Use clamps or a vise to hold it to a strong work surface, such as a workbench. Using gouges can create a lot of force, so make sure that the wood is really secure when pushed from a variety of directions. Place the forefinger of your less dominant hand near the sharp end of the chisel and the rest of the hand at the place where the metal blade meets the handle. This will give you control over where the tip moves as you push it. Your other hand should be back on the handle, so that you can use its strength to push through the wood. As you push with your dominant hand, direct the tool with your less dominant hand. It will take practice to master how to move the chisel to get the effect you want. Moving the gouge across the grain risks damaging the wood and chipping out areas that you don’t want removed. As you practice and become more skilled with the gouge, the way you should move the tool across the wood will become more natural. To identify the grain, look closely at the wood. Look for lines going across the wood. These are the grain lines and you should move the gouge with them or across the very end of them. Gouges are versatile chisels that can make a wide variety of cuts. Play with your gouges to make patterns and remove wood in any shape you like.  For deep cuts, you can even hold the gouge perpendicular to the wood and hit the handle sharply with a mallet. Repeat your action, change the size of your gouge as needed for the design, and sharpen blades as required until your project is complete.

SUMMARY: Use a gouge for fine woodwork, such as carving or sculpting. Firmly attach your wood to a solid surface. Hold the gouge with both hands and push it though the wood. Push the gouge with the grain of the wood or across the end grain. Raise, lower, or turn the handle to achieve the desired effect.


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Take a strand from the outside edge of the left section and cross it over, making sure it crosses over the strand from the other side. As you move down the length of your hair, you'll see the fishtail pattern emerging.

SUMMARY: Cross a strand from the left section to the right. Continue crossing strands back and forth. Secure the end with a ponytail holder.


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: One way to be an individual is to find something that you truly and deeply care about and to make an effort to really explore it. If you don’t know what you’re good at yet, then you should try to join more clubs at school, pick up a sport, or take a class in Japanese, creative writing, watercolor painting, tap dancing, or really anything at all that you’ve been wanting to try. Finding something that you love and sticking to it will help you boost your confidence while finding a new way to help you express yourself. Along with finding a new hobby, you can work to see if you can turn it into a passion. You may discover that you really want to be a writer, photographer, or dancer, and this will give you even more confidence and conviction in your abilities. Not every person has to be creative to be an individual. However, exploring your creative faculties can open up new ideas and can make you feel more aware of new possibilities. Try your hand at writing a short story, a poem, a play, or even a novel, or work on writing a skit with your friends just for fun. Explore your artistic side and work on drawing, ceramics, oil painting, or charcoal sketching just to see what strikes your fancy. You don’t have to be particularly good at it, but you should be willing to try if you want to be an individual.  Even if all you can draw are stick figures, exercising the creative part of your brain can help you see the world in a new, original way. This is a big part of being an individual. Being creative can also help you discover new ideas you didn’t know you had. You may never have thought about the world in a certain way until you tried your hand at writing short stories. Another way to be an individual is to step outside of your comfort zone and to accept the new challenges the world may bring. Volunteer in a new part of town; run for class president; apply for a job that you’re not sure you’re qualified for. Help your friend figure out a difficult project. When a challenge comes your way, don’t bat it away and stick to the things you know, but make an effort to try new things and to tackle new and difficult questions.  True individuals are always growing and changing. They face challenges with fortitude and work to find the best way to succeed, no matter how difficult the circumstances are. Of course, if you’re overbooked, you don’t want to say yes to everything, either, or you’ll be too busy to grow as a person. But if you’re worried about trying something new because you think you might fail, then you should take up the challenge and see what you can do. Another way to be an individual is to surround yourself with independent thinkers whose ideas and ways of life you admire. You can learn a lot from people who are creative, interesting, and not afraid to be who they are. If you spend all of your time with followers or with people who don’t really have much to teach you about the world, then it’ll be harder for you to grow as an individual. This doesn’t mean you should ditch every person who you deem to be too boring for you, but it does mean that you should seek out people who challenge you and inspire you to be a better version of yourself. True individuals are critical thinkers. They evaluate every aspect of a situation before reaching a conclusion, and they use a large knowledge base to help them find the best approaches to tricky situations. They don’t accept everything they hear from their friends or on the radio and do their own research, making sure that they’re reaching the best conclusions instead of resorting to lazy or incomplete thinking.  True individuals think outside the box and know that most situations are more complicated than they seem. They don’t accept everything they hear at face value, even if it’s coming from a person they respect. Individuals are always asking a lot of questions and aren’t afraid to admit when they don’t know an answer. They know that the best way to be informed is to question everything. Become more well-read. Read every book you can get your hands on, from the complete works of Virginia Woolf or Franz Kafka to contemporary non-fiction about historical events or modern science. The more you read, the more knowledge you gain, and the more information you have at your disposal. One of the reasons you may be struggling with becoming an individual is because you feel like you have to fit the expectations of your parents, friends, significant other, or society at large. If you truly want to be an individual, then you have to do what is best for yourself, not what your parents expect you to do. It can be hard to say no to people or to tell them that your goals are different from theirs, but this is the only way you can truly move forward.  For example, if your parents want you to go to med school because you come from three generations of doctors but you’d rather study creative writing, be up front about it. You don’t want to fall into a life that doesn’t feel like your own. Of course, you shouldn’t go against all of the expectations of society just to be an individual, but because you really think you’re doing what’s best for you. For example, if you drop of out college, do it because you have a great reason for it, not because you think it would be rebellious.

SUMMARY:
Find a new hobby. Explore your creative side. Accept challenges. Spend more time with people you admire. Use your critical thinking skills. Don’t do things to fit other people’s expectations.