Caricature Carvers of America: Bios: Phil Bishop

Phil Bishop is a full time woodcarving instructor along with his wife Vicki. They have traveled through 41 states and have taught in 31 of those, several times. The Bishops are away from home approximately 200 days and teach 25 to 30 seminars a year.

Phil was born in Albion, in the southeastern Oklahoma mountains. He served 2 years in the army and was a helicopter crew chief in Viet Nam.

The Bishops both worked at 3M Company, Data Storage Products, in Weatherford, OK, where they participated in a motivational seminar that influenced them to venture out on their own to become self employed. They began to make a living utilizing their art backgrounds in 1994.

Phil started carving in 1992 having been inspired by Leanin’ Tree Cards (excellent photos of western carvings by Gene Zesch and Chris Hammack). He was also exposed to Steve Prescott, Randy Landen, and Dave Dunham which was icing on the cake. Phil is self taught in drawing and painting and learned to carve from books by Steve Prescott, Cleve Taylor, and Harold Enlow. After winning numerous awards in shows he began to teach woodcarving in 1996. He became a member of the Caricature Carvers of America in 1998 and an Emeritus member in 2006.

The Bishops have created over 100 roughouts and carry a choice of 40 different roughouts for classes. Each year they create 5 new ones each and discontinue 10, keeping things new. Their unique style of team teaching has been well accepted in the carving community, a bargain, two teachers for the price of one. Both Phil and Vicki have done articles in all 3 of the major carving magazines, with Phil garnering a cover.

As to his interest in caricature, he has studied books by Dick Gautier and cowboy artist Herb Mignery and considers them to be his favorite caricaturists.

Phil’s primary interest is in western themes, cowboys and Indians, of which there are an abundance in Oklahoma.

Phil’s caricature objective is to strive to be the best at what he does even though he sometimes falls short. He is trying to elevate the appreciation of caricature woodcarving to a higher art form.

Phil feels the primary caricature features are a big head, hands, and feet in proportion to each other with the body serving as an armature holding the rest together. He thinks a funny story, clean cuts, and quality painting rounds out the carving. His advice to caricature carvers is “to loosen up, have fun, and try something different.” Learn and use what you like from other sources to create a style of your own. Sharp tools and practice, practice, practice are the tools for success.

Phil has an active teaching schedule. Please call (580) 225-3109 for information on seminars in your area.

Phil is available to teach woodcarving seminars and has more than two dozen seminar projects available. He does not judge exhibits and shows. His carvings are available for sale. He can be reached at: