Nearly Almost Complete Statuary

This is my nearly complete piece for the Ward World Carving Competition.  I have some touch up here and there. 

Minnesota Mud Hen - Poulet Noir

The Minnesota Decoy Collectors show coming up in Feb has selected the COOT as the bird of the year. To help show support of the show and to provide motivation for the MN Decoy Carving Club, we selected a Cedar Coot as our annual Winter decoy project. To make this project work for myself, I drew up a pattern from really cool photo of a european coot. Then I carved and painted this little guy up. Fun thing is that it only took about 2 Saturdays to get done. This was certainly fun.

Belted Kingfisher

This is the bird I finished during the Gary Eigenburger Class up at the Krausman's studio. Pretty intense week. I will work on the habitate for a bit in order to call it complete. I am going to let it sit for a week or so to fully dry.

Visit to the Eagle Center

Both Mom and John talked about the center. Today Laura and I went down there and spent an enjoyable day. On the way back we stopped at Kings for a burger in Miesville. MMMMM

Two Willows - New Landscape - en Plain Air

Laura and I were bored last Sunday and she wanted to drive about and find a place to just go sit and read. I grabbed my paint and easel and we headed to Caponi Park in Eagan. I found an opening in the lake where two willows displayed prominently on the other side. We sat for about 3-4 hours as I struggled with the color green. I always struggle with posting a impressionistic painting, because it really does look better a few feet away. Anyway, I'll keep churning these out. Particulars is this is a 9x12 gesso panel with oil paint. A wise painter that I admire named Larry Seiler said it takes about 100 paintings just to start to learn. 98 left to go.

Waterfall Bubinga Fountain Pen

I really loved making this pen. In this case, the customer has a full concert grand piano made of the wood from the same tree. When I bought the wood it was called waterfall curly Bubinga. In furniture making it is known as Kevazinga. In any case it is $50 a board ft. (Wowza!) The particular tree this came from has a celbrity-like history because of its size (over 8' in diameter), location in the Camaroon Jungle, and price of $200,000 for the one tree. Read more here http://www1.rockler.com/news/releases/bubinga%20release_final_r1.pdf. This pen pattern is an Art Nouveau retro. The 22kt Gold and Rhodium hardware really look great with the bubinga. He has since let me know that it writes like a dream right out the box which is a surprize given that it ususally takes about 1-2 hours to set a groove into the nib. I am sure it will only get better.

Interpretive Carving - Great Blue Heron

I picked up a piece of cedar root from a Carolina root seller at the World Carving Competition last year. He had so many choices, but I had to fit what ever I bought in my suitcase. When I saw this piece of wood, I knew it would work and an idea of what I wanted to do with it. I might make a few changes next time I try this style but the carving and painting were fun.

The Base is still in the clay design stage, but a friend just cut down a walnut in his yard and slab of it will go to good use. It's Painted in Oils.