It doesn't help with carving lessons (I agree look at figure carving instead of western carving), but as a fellow flower hater I have found lots of fun patterns to trace and practice techniques with in tattoo books. Some of the adult coloring books also have some cool pattern ideas. The process and techniques are the same as floral carving you just have to think a little outside the box to find the right stamp for the texture you want. I find that the biggest draw back to this is once you start drawing your own patterns finding a flow with a repeating pattern to fit a space is harder with figure images than floral ones.