Burned-in detail on the feathers under the right wing

    Paying no attention to the well-defined next steps that I outlined in my previous post, I decided today to start burning the primaries and secondaries, and their coverts, on the underside ion the right wing.  I chose the underside again because any mistakes would be less likely to show.

    I used the woodturning tip to underscore the edges of the flight feathers so that the overlaps would look more real, to undercut the junction between the "hard" and "soft" feathers on the wing, and to define the fairly robust shafts on the primary and secondary feathers.  I worked about two hours outside, but had to quickly pick everything up in advance of a fast-moving thunderstorm.  After the rain, I ran a couple of errands, and then got back to the wing, but this time working inside.

    I managed to finish burning all the feathers on the underside of the wing that needed to be textured in this way.  The result of today's work is shown in the photo below.

    Again, the burning is for adding texture, not color, but the brown color does look dramatic at this point.  The feathers are more clearly defined and the feather groupings are more easily seen.  It is clearer now how the ten primary feathers at the outer part of the wing are beginning to fold under the secondaries, as the osprey nears the water surface.  I have to figure out just how to burn the details in the area up under the armpit; I can't get the hot tip of the burner up in there.  Not that anyone is going to look there, but I just can't leave it unfinished.

    I noticed two things today that I had noticed when doing my Archaeopteryx carving: 1) the grain in the pine wood that I used for this carving varies in hardness, resulting in darker or lighter burn lines; 2) the residual pitch in the wood bubbles up here and there when the hot tip of the burner passes over certain areas.  Basswood, tupelo, and other woods commonly used by bird carvers would not exhibit either of these tendencies.  I may carve something from one of these woods, maybe a smaller bird like a chickadee!  I do like pine, though, just not sure why.

    Today's work took at least four hours, for an approximate running total of 92 hours of carving.

    My bottles and tubes of paint colors all arrived today from Amazon and Jo Sonja.  Much more paint than I will need for this project, but I may use some of it again in the future on a ship model or another bird carving.