July 19 work in progress

I transferred two images to two pieces of ivory today.  They are both projects I "should have finished yesterday" if you know what I mean... clock's a-tickin'.  The other, which I will show you later, is larger and EXTREMELY complicated and detailed, so I'm going to try to bust this one out pretty quickly (ha ha, "quickly" being a very relative term when it comes to working on a microscopic level).

This is going to be a portrait of two Sebright Bantam chickens.  And to all my fancier/poultry exhibitor/chicken snob friends, I KNOW you're going to jump all over and say they don't look like good sebrights.  I KNOW.  They aren't!  These are "hatchery grade" birds, and that's deliberate.  So don't get all uppity about it.  ;-)

The Rohner Hammer, finished

I thought I had explained about the history of this piece but maybe I didn't.  John Rohner is one of the most well-respected men in the world of hand engraving.  For several decades, he has been asking engravers to put their work onto hammer heads for his collection.  It is a tremendous honor to be asked to contribute to the hammer collection.  I'm not sure there are any other ivory hammers in the collection, I think this may be the first one.  He left the design up to me, but asked that I somehow include a grizzly bear.  He was given the name of "Golden Grizzly Bear" by a Sioux medicine man some years ago.

If you don't know what scrimshaw is, it's a type of hand-engraving.  These images are not painted onto the surface, but instead they are engraved into it.  This is done entirely with microscopic dots engraved into the ivory.  Ink fills the dots to give the image its color.  It's an incredibly time-consuming process.  This entire piece is two inches long, and one inch in diameter.  It is made of pre-ban elephant ivory, and is a replica of an engraving hammer (obviously one would not normally hammer anything with something made of ivory!)

August 10 work in progress: Rohner hammer

The thing about  making plans... they totally change.  ;-)  I originally envisioned this being fairly straightforward and simple: a bear on the front face, and some type of small adornment on the side.  You know what though, it didn't feel right.  If ever a piece just begged for full-coverage awesomeness, this is it.  So it's ended up a whole lot more complicated than I planned!  Looking pretty snazzy though, I love how this is turning out.  Still need to finish the other side, and then put the bear on it.  It'll rock your socks.

August 1 work in progress: Rohner hammer

I thought I'd better show you how things are going.  I know I said I was going to start on the hammer face, but after kicking around a bunch of ideas I decided what to do with the other parts, so I decided to save the face (which will be the grizzly bear, the most fun and delicate image on the piece) for last.  I decided that some geometric patterns would look really classy and wouldn't make the piece excessively "busy" (like putting several grizzly images on it might have done).  It also gives it a bit of a Native American look (I hope, anyway) which ties into why Mr. Rohner asked me to put a grizzly on it in the first place.

Geometric stuff kinda makes my brain shrivel up, it's like doing math.  ;-)  I was planning to have this portion be just black and white but now I'm kinda thinking those "white" triangles might need to be in color.  Of course that means more time but hey, gotta do what I gotta do!

Anyhow, stay tuned, more to come...  I think I'll do the sides now (between my thumb and finger) and then decide about color.

puzzling over the next project(s)

There are two projects I'm attempting to start on.  They both have been on the list for a LONG time, and they both have me pretty thoroughly stumped.  Sometimes composition comes so easily.  Other times... not so much.  One's a drawing, one's scrimshaw.  I'll only be able to show the scrimshaw on here at this time.

Here's the surface I'll be working on:

That's an ivory hammer head, and it was custom made for me to work on.  I'm creating a piece for John Rohner's engraving hammer collection.  To my knowledge this is the only ivory one that's been made so far.  Obviously a real engraving hammer would not be made of ivory!  Over many decades, Mr. Rohner has asked various engravers to engrave a hammer head for him.  It's a tremendous honor, and I think I've been a little intimidated to actually work on it...  The design is totally up to me, with just one specification: he wants me to include a grizzly bear.  I've been brainstorming for a long time about this, and in the last few days have sketched out numerous ideas.  I think I'm getting a bit closer to something good.  But I only have one part of it figured out for certain, and that's the flat face of the hammer.  So although I prefer to have things all figured out before I start, I think I'll go ahead and start work on the face even though I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do on the sides or on the back.  Whatever I decide to do won't change the face though, so maybe I need to just get this thing on the bench and see what develops!

As for the drawing that's got me stumped, well, I'm sure I'll have an "aha!"moment pretty soon.  Maybe I need to go outside and wander around the horse corrals for inspiration.  ;-)

June 27 work in progress

Getting there!

June 26 work in progress

I started this in January, I worked on it while I was at a show. And then I didn't touch it til June, when I took it to Blade Show and worked on it there too. Now I need to finish it by the end of the day Thursday so I can enter it in a show.

not yet titled
11 by 13.5 inches
graphite and charcoal on velour

"Romeo" scrimshaw Pomeranian dog finished!

"Romeo"

Pomeranian Dog

full-color scrimshaw on Corian (TM) tile

2 by 2 inches

custom commission, sold

Isn't he cute?!  :-)  I love how this turned out!

May 12 work in progress

I know I know, super creepy with no eyeballs!  It's just that there are some real subtle colors in the reflections on the eyes and I didn't want to risk muddying that area with all surrounding black ink, so that's why the eyes ended up being last.  So what still needs to be done: eyes, probably adjust the shadows a little, and signature.  And don't think that'll happen in a few minutes, ha ha nooooo.

Anyway, now that you can see what my scratching is turning into, I'll tell you about the image.  This is Romeo.  He's a Pomeranian and a therapy dog, not to mention obviously extremely cute!  He is definitely the apple of his owners' eyes.  :-)

I have to say I loooove scrimshawing furry critters!

I think it's pretty safe to say this'll be the last thing finished before the big move.  Unfortunately that means I won't get a knife done for Blade Show, but life goes on.  I need to start packing.  You're thinking "wait, I thought you did start."  True, I did.  And then I stopped.  But now that the ball is really rolling and it's getting down to the last minute, I need to resume in a big way.  Clock's a-tickin'.

Well, I think I'll call it a day in the studio, I've been scratching lines since this morning and there's a couch and a television and a DVD and a cat calling me from the other room.  Typical Saturday night, woo wee. I thought really hard about going to Reno today for the Californios Ranch Roping competition.  I went years ago when it was still up in Red Bluff and it was pretty cool to see, it would be a great place to shoot some photos, and I'd found out that one of my favorite people in the world was going to be there but unfortunately it's enough of a drive that I'd pretty much lose an entire day, and there's just too much to do right now.  I need to put that on my calendar for next year though!

May 10 work in progress

Scrimshaw, as you surely know from reading this blog for a while (right?) is a form of engraving.  What gives it the color to stand out against the (usually light colored) surface is ink.  So before it's inked, it doesn't look like much:

In fact, it requires some strategic positioning under the microscope in order to get enough reflected light to see what one is actually doing.

Progress as of tonight...  A lot of what might look like white highlights is actually reflection.  Quick point-and-shoot photos under the fluorescent light is not the way to take good photos.  I'll do good photos when I'm done!  :-)

May 9 work in progress

To clarify, the Corian is not actually a weird greenish color in real life.  When photographed under the fluorescent light of the microscope it looks that way, but it's really just an off-white color.

Let me just say it takes a LOT of lines to get an image that dark!  This image will be a mix of dots and lines (dots more so when I get to the non-black areas).

May 7 work in progress

This will be done in color, but it's almost entirely a black and white image.  Actually, it's almost entirely a black image.  The furry areas there around the muzzle will end up MUCH darker than they are right now, this is just the "first coat" so to speak.  But since it is a very dark image, I will end up doing all the black areas first.  Long way to go... gonna look a little spooky without eyes for a while!

a new scrimshaw piece in progress

I've just started a scrimshaw piece, I'll just let you watch and see what develops, without saying too much about it yet.  The material (because I know someone will ask) is Corian.  This is a custom piece.  And I need to get it done before the time comes to pack up the studio.

Looks like I'll officially be moving at the very end of May or very beginning of June, depending on how people's schedules work out.  No doubt there will be at least one or two trips up and back in the mean time though.  I painted the inside of the loft last weekend, and I like how it looks, really gives it character. Still needs flooring and plumbing and all that good stuff, and I'm still not entirely sure about the chicken coop situation, but things are coming together well.  If I had the ability to teleport back and forth that would sure simplify things.  ;-)  I know it's going to take a while after I move to get into a routine and feel like life is back to normal!  But I really really look forward to that time, when I'm settled in, know what I'm doing, and can really dig into the ever increasing backlog of work.  I'm one of those people who needs a routine, I (obviously) don't handle change and uncertainly particularly well.  ;-)

Oh yeah and I'm going to Blade Show again in June!

This year is nuts!  :-)

ps- Jan, the new blogger settings have me all messed up too, took me a while to find stuff, and to remember to title my posts!

pps- MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!  (I know I should have said that to you all at the beginning of the day rather than the end, oh well, I did plaster it all over Facebook this morning though!)

"The Greatest Generation" Bowie knife

Hellooo, sorry for not blogging more... I'm back and forth between two computers, with no photo/website software on one and tempermental old software on the other, so blogging is kind of a giant pain in the you know what right now. I need to get all transferred over so I can resume normality here on the internet.

But, nevertheless, I finished second part of the "The Greatest Generation" project, the Bowie knife, a few days ago. This is has been an incredible project, and I SO honored to have been a part of it. So here's a big huge heartfelt THANK YOU to Dennis and to Mike!!!

I think I talked about this earlier, but I'll talk about it again... the theme of this piece. Originally there were some ideas kicked around that just weren't feasible for various reasons, so I started on the grips for the 1911 first (with Patton and MacArthur) while we all thought more about what to do with the knife. And I was reading one of my art magazines one day and found an article about a photographer of horses, and what really stuck in my mind was the dramatic clouds in the photos. And that got me thinking about the knife, and the long horizontal space... and airplanes! Iconic WWII airplanes! That idea was well received, and we were off and running. My client selected the types of planes (a F4U Corsair to represent the Pacific Theater, and a P-38 Lightning and two B-17s to represent the European Theater), the types of ships shown on the Pacific side (Essex, Gridley, Baltimore), and the general theme of each side, and I designed the layout. But I kept thinking back to the horse photos and the clouds, and I knew I wanted the background and the scenery to be just as important as the planes.

I'm not sure exactly how to explain this, but I think my biggest challenge here was trying to give these inanimate objects a sense of life. It's not like depicting a person's face, or an animal. I feel that I accomplished that goal. :-)

I am thrilled, THRILLED, with how this all turned out, I wouldn't change a thing on any of it. I can't wait to see it all finished, all the parts together. I know that Mike is still working on engraving the pistol, but the whole set will be shown at the Colt Collectors Association show this fall, and at the Firearms Engravers Guild of America show next January.

Now, I gotta tell you I'm not set up AT ALL for photographing metal. I took about 987498745 pictures and they all sucked, so I got fed up and scanned the darn thing. Unfortunately this doesn't do justice to the beautiful blade or to the engraving, so I've put in some of the closeup shots as well. I'm sure this will be professionally photographed at some point when the whole project is completed.

Knife made by Larry Downing
Engraved by Michael Dubber
Scrimshaw by me, obviously ;-)
Total length of knife: 11 inches
Length of ivory handle: 3-5/8 inches (at the longest point)

If you click on the pics you can see them bigger!













This should give you a sense of size:

March somethingorother work in progress

This was from a few days ago. This is the last WIP pic that you will see. It's soooo close to done right now (right now being much farther along than what you see here). :-)

March 6 work in progress

The end is in sight! I say that not out of relief, but just excitement. :-)

I spent some time last night figuring out what to do with the background, and looking at lots of photographs of skies and clouds and landscapes. I've got it all planned out now, so in about a gazillion more dots I'll be done. (That's how I should start measuring time, dots, as in "sure, I'd love to go out to dinner, just give me 4500 dots and I'll be ready, okay?")

March 1 work in progress

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I'm having software problems up the wazoo. I recently bought a brand new shiny iMac (yes I'm very proud of that) but I have not moved all my stuff from this ancient iMac over there yet, and the ancient iMac (on which I have photo editing software and other magical things, and on which I am currently writing this) is having issues. Things might get all complicated here for a while in my world as I attempt to switch over in the next few weeks. Oh how I hate computer problems!

Anyway...

No scrimshaw today, I tweaked my wrist pretty bad somehow yesterday and it said I needed to work on some other stuff today.

February 25 work in progress

Okay, the planes are done! (unless I need to tweak something... always a possibility). I more or less know what I'm doing with the background. At least, I have the ground part figured out. I don't know yet what I will do with the sky, kinda depends how everything else looks. :-)

February 23 work in progress

February 20 work in progress