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.