WHY?
Many years ago, in a craft shop, I had seen a bronze octopus mounted on a rounded boulder. It was way out of my price range but the image stuck with me and I decided to see if the idea would work in wood.
HOW?
The first thing was to find a boulder/cobble. The local garden centre sold these and I chose one with variations in colour and levels.
I wanted to make a maquette but for this I needed an identical stone so I made a plaster cast and modelled the octopus in plasticine.
The next step was to make the wood fit the stone. This proved to be the most time consuming and demanding phase of the carving. A rough fit was obtained and then chalk was applied to the stone. The wood was repeatedly offered up to the stone, high spots removed, and eventually a good fit obtained.
The wood was fixed to the stone with grab adhesive which had the advantage of being a good colour match and would not damage the chisels.
Now the carving could begin.
The image was gradually refined.
Then it was finally finished with 400 grit abranet sanding sheets and waxed a few times
REFLECTIONS
Not quite up to the standard of the bronze but not a bad result. I would not use grab adhesive again. Although it stuck well enough I never felt that it was fully secure and consequently was rather tentative in the use of my chisels.
The Hardingstone Carver 
John. I had hoped to send this as an anomalous contribution, but got caught out by the two (required) end slots.
Many years ago as a Boy Scout and leader of the “Eagle Patrol”, I rather fancied the idea (and to be different from other Patrols) that a small EagleTotem carving atop my stout scout staff would do the trick. Foolishly I chose oak, but none the less managed to achieve a reasonable result about six inches high. I quickly learned that oak had a tendency to respond from chisel pressure by splitting along the grain, however, after one or two false starts the Eagle appeared!.
Your nephew is to be greatly admired by such an impressive website. Let’s talk sometime.
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