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.
No comments:
Post a Comment