One of My Favorite Photos

This photo is of a pair of Decoys made by Jode Hillman. They are one of my favorites for many reasons, but most of all since they are now safe on my family room shelf.

Black Duck Completed

Here is the completed black duck. He will need a weight and a strap for the competition. Not expecting to do well, but it will be fun that the carving club will flood the competition with some working blackducks. If the actual decoys are as good as what I saw at the club, we will have some real beauties.

Cork Black Duck

The Minnesota Decoy Carving Club winter project is a cork black duck. Everyone got a piece of cork and we are to be finished by Feb for the MN Decoy Collectors Show. They will be entered into a contest at the show. This is to be a hunting style (no details) so it is simple. I took the inspiration for this pattern from Connecticut. A style known as the Stratford School. I will put the finishing touches on over the next few weeks.

Mini Black Duck

Was playing with a concept that included carving a small decoy. This part of the concept is the decoy.

Proved hard to do well. Even using my smallest brushes, what looks good to the naked eye does not convey well under the magnification of the camera lens.

Seasonal Carvings

Finished these up for the bookshelf.

Baby Gabey and Lizzy

Now this is a cute picture. Check out those eyes!

New antiques

Just finished these two as part of the MN Decoy carvers club demonstration. I have posted this style before. Again I have a Common Eider and have added new a White Winged Scoter (Thats the black one). Eiders don't really make it to MN, but there were reports of Scoters on lake superior this last weekend. There is the beginning of a tutorial on how I did these at the MN Decoys Carvers website. Here is the link to our monthly newsletter.

http://mdwcc-carving-club.com/Dec%202008%20newsletter.pdf Next month will have how I finished the decoys. It was nice to see one member had already brought in a carving of a Ruddy Duck he in tended to use this carving/painting technique on ..