Site of the Week- Bird Carver

Having stuck my toe into the world of bird carving, I have been interested in the many ways other carvers approach the topic. Of course, there are toms of carvers making realistic birds with great skill and way more patience than I have. The painting and woodburning detail on some of these birds is just astounding. But as I have stated before, I have a preference for the more stylized carvings including every style from folkish to sleek, natural wood variations. I came across a site with a gallery of beautiful birds by carver Rand Jack. Once at his site, scroll down to the green Gallery button. Sit back and click your way through some photos of absolutely gorgeous birds that show off some beautiful wood that Jack has obviously taken great care to select. He doesn't reveal much about his methods, and even states that email inquires on that subject will be screened out. But I can tell you getting a piece of curly maple to look the way his birds look is a lot of hard work. Maybe more work than burning and painting realistic birds. I might just have to take a crack at something like it to see for myself. To be even more impressed, you might have a look at his Native-American pieces or his stone carvings. The man's got some talent!

Every Bird Needs a Friend

My little shorebird got lonely, so I made another so he could have a friend. I tried a little different painting technique on this one. You can see they both have the legs finished using the blue/yellow epoxy. It's a great product. I'm sure I'll find lots of other uses for it.

Shorebird finished - almost

As I anticipated, this shorebird project went pretty quickly, though some extra time was taken to experiment with a few ideas. I used a #3 gouge to give the impression of feathers on the body and then a #5 micro gouge working from the neck up to the beak to indicate smaller feathers. I used a combination of paint colors to get a nice rich grey-brown color for the body and the belly is white with a few drops of yellow ochre. For the eyes, I carved them out a little and made them a slight dome shape and then painted them by hand. After the paint dried I sanded the body lightly with some 240 paper to expose raw wood and give the coloring a slight dappled look. It also rendered the whole bird such that it appears older than it is. The photo shows wire legs which are not as they will be when I'm finished adding some epoxy and a coat of paint. The base is just a piece of pine I chose for it's thickness and availability and I experimented a little with the disk sander to give the base a faceted look. I gave it a wash of thinned black and then some yellow ochre while the black was still wet, just to take the edge off the pure black color. I could have used a coat of ebony stain for a similar effect. The whole carving gets a coat of matte finish. Finally the eyes get a drop of clear epoxy so they shine and stand out a little. My choice to go with a stylized look gave me a lot of latitude and by painting it in a number of different color combinations and changing the beak shape and length, the same pattern could easily yield a number of different birds.

Two New Tools and a Shorebird

This year's Christmas list was weighted heavy with carving items and other tools. Santa came through and added to my stash of woodworking goodies. Two are mentioned in this post, since I have found them most useful for my current project, a shorebird.

Living on Long Island gives me access to a wide variety of beaches and coastal marshes. Although I don't get to the be as often as I'd like, I do prefer the more natural areas that favor and protect wildlife. Shorebirds are among my favorites and it's always a thrill to see them running about in their natural surroundings. So I thought maybe I'd try carving a few. After searching around online and taking out a few books from the library, I decided I prefer the smaller birds and especially the ones with very long beaks. I also decided o do a more stylized version of some of my favorites, but keeping fairly close to actual form and proportions. I'm just not interested in trying to burn in every feather with scientific precision.

I am carving this from basswood with a piece of dowel I formed for the beak. The legs will be made from coat hanger and wrapped with some yellow/blue epoxy and painted. That will give me the strength I need and allow me to form the kneecaps. I haven't decided on a base yet.

The new tools? Well, one is a 3" Flexcut draw knife, helpful in rounding out the corners after I roughed it on the bandsaw. After further shaping the body with a shallow gouge and a utility knife, I took the body over to my new favorite tools, a Ryobi combo sander station. The belt allowed me to get the body to the shape you see here in minutes! Next, I'll use a bench knife to add texture to the body and some definition under the wings. To get a stylized "feather" look, I plan to paint the body, sand off some of the paint for a weathered look. Should be a quick and fun project.

Paint Changes Everything

A while back, I had a post about ways to resize an existing carving (Make it Bigger - part 1). I never showed how the finished versions turned out. The largest one turned out to be a gift for my son, who attends Siena College. I got the idea to make this kind of a mascot gnome. A paint job using Siena colors did the job. The trickiest part was hand-painting the Siena logo. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I think he was pleased too.

Site of the Week: Inspiration

It's been a while... Happy New Year. I had a very hectic holiday, including a New Years Eve wedding, all compounded y a serious snowstorm and a persistent cold. I haven't done a whole lot of carving in the past two weeks, but I hope to get back on schedule soon. I did want to post a Site of the Week at very least. This one is called The Iowa Woodcarver. It is not my intent to review the work of the carver, but rather the site itself, as it might help us carvers in some way. I found the site to be layed out well and packed with lots of great photos of this Iowa Woodcarver's work. I have to point out, the only flaw I found was that we don't really know who he is. I guess he wants to stay anonymous!

What I found truly inspiring about this site was the photos of his shop. He describes it as a small corner of a basement and nothing fancy. I don't think a well-organized, highly functioning workspace needs to be any fancier than this. His tools are organized, his adequate stock of carving wood is well-organized, he has plenty of  well-lighted work surface, a dedicated sharpening station, a place to hang works in progress, and a well-organized cabinet for his pencils and paints. Wow! I think this is perhaps and ideal setup. And, from the looks of these photos, he even has someone to clean up all the chips he is obviously making!

Nice going anonymous Iowa Woodcarver!

Wedding Spoon

This will be my last post for 2010! I finished a few pieces in the past week or so, but they are for gifts to my family members, so I don't want to post  them until after the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, I will be spending my New Year's Eve this year at a blessed event. My niece will be getting hitched just before the year ends. She is a special niece, so I wanted to give her something special. Something with some symbolic meaning to remember the day by. So here is a love spoon I made for her. I'm calling it a Wedding Spoon, since the tradition of a love spoon is that it should be given by the groom. Ideally made by the groom, but that would not be happening in this case. I'll be back here posting away sometime in early 2011.

All the best and Happy New Year!