Wings and tail

     I spent about 4 hours this hot afternoon working on the wings and tail of the osprey carving.  On the wings, I worked on defining the feathers on the leading edges of the wings, and some of the contour feathers on the underside of the right wing.  There are so many of these feathers, and defining them is only the first part of a process involving defining and texturing and/or burning.

    I had not done too much work on the tail before today.  All I had done was to define the dorsal surfaces of the twelve tail feathers, and today I worked on the ventral surface, on the belly and rump coverts bordering the tail feathers.  Parts of this job were hard, because of the direction of the grain, the direction of rotation of the bits, the difficulty in reaching some of the spots, and the fact that I am right-handed and not ambidextrous.  The result of today's work is shown in the photos below.

    The first photo shows the rump area and the dorsal surface of the tail feathers.  The pattern of overlap produces one feather in the middle that lies on top of the others and does not have an edge that extends below that of its neighbor.  There is an even number of tail feathers, so seven of them overlap one way, and the remaining five overlap the other way.  Seems odd, but vertebrate embryology favors bilateral symmetry, and there cannot be a feather that arises from the midline.

  

      The second photo shows the underside of the tail, and the contour feathers at the base of the tail in the area of the cloaca.  If my current idea about the way in which I will mount the carving holds true, this will be the (appropriate?) point at which the curved bar or rod is inserted into the carving.  The bar or rod will extend directly posteriorly parallel to the tail feathers and then curve around down to insert into a heavy, stable base.  

     The stiff tail feathers emerge from the body coverts as if the tail had been inserted into a slot at the posterior end of the body.  I therefore had to define the areas on the sides of the tail base where the tail feathers disappear into the contour feathers.  I got a good start on this area today, but my arthritic fingers were getting sore after four hours (even with a break for a Moxie'n'Morgan) and I had to stop.

    It was good to be carving again after a few days with multiple family obligations, although it was quite warm in the back yard even under a canopy.  Not complaining about the weather, though!

    After today, I have 58 hours invested in this project.  My estimate for total hours is at least 200.

Left wing is shaping up

    I have done a couple of carving sessions since my last post, so I am up to about 54 hours.  I have been outlining and shaping the coverts and contour feathers on the left wing, as well as fussing here and there with the primaries and secondaries.  This stage of the carving is more work that I remember from my only other detailed bird carving, the Archaeopteryx.  Then again, the wings of that creature were simpler than those of modern birds, and the carving as a whole was smaller.  I was ambitious in choosing to carve a large bird, even at a half-size scale.

    No pictures of the carving, but below is a photo of the little perennial garden I have been establishing around the stump of one of the multi-trunked, really large maples that we had removed because of rot in the “crotch”.  This is the view I have right now as I write this post.

Stay tuned!

Holder for carving bits

    Not much carving over the last day or two, but I did have a chance this afternoon to make a holder for my carving bit collection.  The bits have either 3/32" or 1/8" shanks, so I drilled holes with these dimensions about 5/8" deep in a 12" by 3.5" pine board I had in my scrap collection.  I drilled three rows of holes, spaced 0.5" apart, using my benchtop drill press, with the holes split in size between the two shank sizes.  I was able to place nearly all of my most often used bits in this new holder.  I will keep some spares on the rotating holder that I have been using.

     Not a carving accomplishment, but just something that will make my work a little easier by securely holding my bit collection.

Feathers and more feathers

     I started on the left wing today, and spent about four hours “relieving” feathers, as the bird carvers say.  I did the primaries and secondaries and their respective coverts on the top side and underside.  I had to first do some thinning and shaping of this relatively untouched wing, based on what I found I had to do on the other side.  After this, I redrew the mostly obliterated feather lines, and began defining the overlapping edges with various carving bits.  I had to make sure that the feather sizes and patterns on the left wing matched those on the right, but not exactly, since animal symmetry is never perfect.  I almost stopped at one point, because I got a little frustrated; a 20-minute break reading my latest book under the canopy on the deck was all I needed to get started again.  Overall, a productive day.  No photos, because they would not show the true extent of the progress, and would look like all the other recent images.  I will probably post some photos when I get the left wing at the same stage as the right.

    Done for today, for sure.  Beautiful weather this afternoon!

    Today’s four hours and Friday’s three hours brings me to 50 hours of work on this bird so far, and not even close to being done.

Progress is incremental!

    Below are two photos taken after a three-hour session yesterday, June 10.  The wings don't look too much different from the last post, despite the time investment.  I have to get used to this.  I know I am making progress, but I have to be patient.  It will all come together in the end.

    The top photo shows the underside of the wing, with the median coverts defined right up to the leading edge of the wing.  These feathers have been outlined and contoured with a small diamond ball, and smoothed somewhat using the brass bristle brush.  The lower photo shows the top of the right wing, once again with the median coverts defined and contoured.  

    I carved feathers into the leading edge of the wing, which was slow and time-consuming because of the shape of the edge and the care I had to take.  At the "wrist", where the outer part of the wings starts to curve backward,  I carved a few elongates feathers that comprise the alula.  These feathers are attached to the first digit, corresponding to our thumb, and can be controlled separately to affect the flow of air over the wing.  I may free the edges of these feathers so that they show up more, using some thin pointed carving bits and/or a wood burning tip.

    Now that the right wing is covered with feathers, I will use the lessons I have learned from the right wing to thin the left wing, and shape and define the feathers, taking care to make the wings match with respect to the borders of the various feather groups.

    A preview: once the wing feathers are smoothed and the edges defined as well as I can, they will be textured.  The coverts will be textured using a thin disc-like burr to create the thin lines suggesting the structure of these soft feathers.  The primaries and secondaries will be textured with a wood burning tool to simulate the shafts and vanes of these stiffer feathers. Burning in the texture provides the impression of a stiffer feather. I will then go over the entire surface with a stiff brush to remove any stray fragments of wood, sand it lightly, and ready the surface for the application of a sanding sealer.  I won't seal the bird until all of the carving and texturing is done on the wings, head, and body.

    It's a long process, but the results will hopefully be realistic plumage once the bird is sealed, sanded, and painted.

    I may post less often, so that more progress is done between my entries, but will continue to document even the incremental stages with photos.

Soft feathers

    Yesterday was a perfect day for working outside on my carving - sunny, warm, not too breezy.  I tried out some of the new stone bits I had ordered to replace old ones that were clogged with epoxy clay.  (I won't use these nice carving bits on epoxy clay again!)  I got three round, BB-sized pink stones that are perfect for the initial outlining of soft contour feathers, and three, flame-shaped pink stones for softening, smoothing, and rounding out these soft feathers.  Each type worked as advertised, and the results of my three hours or so yesterday are shown below.

    The right wing's upper surface is nearly finished, just a few more rows of contour feathers have to be drawn and carved along the leading edge.  I like the looks of it so far.  The left wing is still very rough, but it will be able to be carved much faster than the right wing was, now that I have made all the mistakes I want to make on the right wing!

    I took another photo yesterday, this one of the picnic bench itself, to provide a view of this makeshift, but perfectly satisfactory, outside work space.  In the background is a small perennial garden, and some pots with various annuals, including a couple pots with cucumbers.  The rotating base holds some of my bits, the behind it is a tray that came with my Dremel tool that holds the rest.  The yellow brass wire brush in the foreground is perfect for removing sawdust, rough edges, and little wood burrs that accumulate during carving.  It acts almost like sandpaper in that it smooths out small rough edges but is actually better, because the bristles conform to the feather shapes better than hand-held sandpaper.  Also visible in the photo are my safety glasses, N95 industrial mask, and ear protectors - my set of armor for power carving!

    The table top is partly in shadow because I use a folding umbrella mounted on a heavy stand (thanks, Pat and Diana) to shade the working area.  Otherwise, working in bright sunlight for a time makes it very difficult to go inside and see anything at all.  It takes minutes for my eyes to adjust to inside the house or garage, and minutes again to re-adjust to going back outside.  The shade provided by the umbrella nearly eliminates that issue.

    Below is a closeup from the photo above, showing the feather detail that is quite visible because of the shadows cast by the sun.  The expert bird carvers say that feather carving should be done with a single bright light source, because the shadows help in visualizing the wing or body surface.  This image also shows how I have tried to portray how the long primary flight feathers at the tip of the wing are in the process of being tucked under the secondary feathers during the dive. 

  Three hours yesterday, total is now 43 hours - more than a standard work week.  Oh yes, I did start some preliminary work on the tail, but did so after the above photos were taken.  Photos of the tail will be in the next posting or two.

More right wing work

    I worked on the right wing outside today for about three hours.  I corrected a mistake in feather overlapping that I missed until I reviewed my feather drawings last night.  It would take too long to describe the mistake, but it had to do with how the outer wing with its primary feathers slides under the inner wing with its secondaries.  Anyway, I fixed it.

    Last night I sketched the coverts and some of the contour feathers in pencil on the wing, and today I outlined them and shaped them.  I used a small diamond ball, small diamond flame, and two of my carbide.  I changed my working position a little moving from working with the carving on the table to having the carving in my lap.  I found last night while drawing the feather outlines on the carving that I could get to all parts of the carving more easily if I held it in my lap.  Worked well today, especially with some of the tricky areas that I had left undone because they were a challenge to get to.

    The results of today's work are shown in the two photos below of the topside and underside of the right wing.  I am still working on just one wing.  Once I have solved on one wing the logistical problems about what to carve first and how to reach the tricky parts, the other wing will carve much more soothly.

    I am working from the back edge of the wing towards the front.  The reason for this has to do with the fact that the feathers are arranged like roof shingles.  Shingling a roof starts at the bottom edge and moves toward the peak; carving feathers on a bird wing proceeds in the same way, from the "bottom"(the trailing edge of the wing) to the "top" (the leading edge of the wing).  You can see in the photos above, particularly the lower one, the difference between the lighter, carved portion of the wing and the uncarved, darker strip along the leading edge.  The wood is darker there because I drew, erased, and redrew the feather pattern several times until I was satisfied.  Some of my fellow carvers warned me that this would happen, and they were right.

    Productive day today, no bright sun but plenty of natural light and no rain.

    Total work time = 40 hours