Done!

     I put the final little painting touches on the carving yesterday, and consider the carving itself to be done.  Still not sure about the base.  I took some photos outside on the picnic table, with a tablecloth under it for contrast.  These are not "official" photos, but they will do for this post.

    I am pleased with how the carving turned out, very close to my fantasy at the beginning about how it would look.  Not as scruffy or messy as a real bird, but that is the nature of carving, I suppose.  I did capture the intense concentration and focus of the bird as it zeroes in on its prey as well as the dynamic nature of the osprey's high-speed dive.

    I will enter this carving in the upcoming New England Woodcarver's Spirit of Wood Show in Massachusetts in mid-October. 

    You should feel free to go back to the very first postings on this blog to see how the final product emerges from the roughly-shaped blocks of glued-up pine board.

    Rounding up a little to account for the times I missed reporting, I would say that this carving took about 140 hours to finish.  Worth the effort, for sure, and I learned a lot about ospreys, power carving, paint mixing, and finishing.  The next one will be better, as will the one after that!

    James/DAD

p.s.(8/30/2022) I have decided to leave the base as is, based on the mostly positive comments from those who have seen it in person.  I guess I am too critical of my own work.

Almost finished!

    This afternoon I spent about two hours adding the patch of dark feathers on the underside of the wings, in the vicinity of the wrist.  The images of diving ospreys I have collected reveal that the coloration and pattern in this area are very inconsistent from bird to bird.  The photo below of a random osprey shows these patches at the wrist and extending along the leading edge of the wings.

    Granted, I don't remember if the birds in my photos are male, female, or juveniles - all of which make a difference in plumage patterns - so I took a mental average of the extent of the dark patches in this area and painted them with several washes of a nutmeg/sable mix.  Once these washes were dry, I thought it was a little too brown, so I added a final wash of straight sable that darkened the area almost to a shade that matched the upper side of the wings.

    I lightened the edges of the primary and secondary feathers under the wings with the 90% warm white/10% raw umber mix, but forced myself to stop before I got carried away.  I don't want to overdue the painting detail, so I will wait until the bird is dry before deciding to do any more of this stuff.

    The base needed a little something more, so I darkened the edges.  I had planned to use black, but in order to unify the base with the carving I decided to use sable to cover the edges.  The dark sable color picks up the upper surfaces of the wings, which are mostly sable in color with some of the nutmeg brown showing through.

    I will let the carving sit for a while before I do any more.  We have grandchildren tomorrow, so I wouldn't be able to work on it until Thursday anyway.

    I am very happy with the carving, not as happy with the base.  If I have the time before the October Spirit of Wood Show, I will make a new base using wood that is less grainy and easier to carve.  The ripples and fish shape could be done better in wood that is a little easier to carve.

    I will take some "formal" photos one of these days, and will post them here. 137 hours!

Base

    Well, for the last few days I have struggled to create a base that meets my expectations and those of possible viewers.  Didn't I already make a base, you ask?  I did, but when I tentatively shared images of my carving with some of my virtual buddies on the Animal and Bird Carving Forum, one of the first comments (by a very experienced carver) was about the absence of a target for the osprey's dive.  I had assumed that the reason for the dive was obvious, and therefore only provided a base with a "marine blue" surface.  My carving friend felt that for artistic purposes and to complete the piece, the osprey should be going after something.

    He was right, of course, and I had felt the same way, so I set to work on a new base.  I wanted to keep the round one around as a backup, in case any new attempts were failures, so I got some new wood and got to work.  I researched some photos of fish from above, swimming just below the surface, and sketched out a generic fish outline with pectoral and ventral fins and a swirly tail.  I tried woodburning the outline into a piece of wood, but that looked cartoony.  I tried doing a shallow relief carving on a different piece of wood, but since I had never carved a fish before and haven't done too much relief carving, that didn't work out too well.  I was about to give up and stick with the round base, when I found an image of a zen-like, abstract carving of a tabletop with a fish's back and some ripples, as if the fish were swimming just below the surface but generating a wake behind him.  That was just the effect I was looking for - abstract, containing ripples to simulate water, and providing the viewer with a sense that the osprey was diving after something we couldn't see.

    The abstract fish shape and the ripple pattern got me thinking more about the shape of the base itself, and after some thought I decided to make the base an oval.  The round base was somewhat static, whereas an oval base with ripples would reinforce the forward and downward movement of the bird.

    I found a clear, knot-free section of a 2"x12" board I had lying around in the garage and drew an oval shape on it that was 8" by 12", using the old push-pins-and-string method.  This is somewhat smaller than the round blue base, which is 13" in diameter.  I cut out the oval with my saber saw (since I don't have a scroll saw), smoothed the sawn edges with my edge sander ( a small one meant for ship model parts, not 1.5" thick wood!), and drilled a 3/16" hole for the support rod.

    I sketched out an appropriately-sized tear-drop shape representing the fish's body and drew some ripples around it to suggest motion.  The ripples would be closer together and a little higher nearer the "head", and wider and shallower as they moved away from the unseen fish in a V-shaped pattern.  I took a deep breath, and starting defining the fish shape and ripples with various carving bits.  I was helped a little bit by the grain pattern in the area of the fish's head. When I got the effect I was looking far, I sanded the surface with increasing grits, from 60 to 100 to 150 to 220, until I got it as smooth as I could, although I couldn't completely remove the carving marks from the dips in between the ripples or eliminate the dips caused by the different densities of the wood grain.

    The next decision was to stain or not to stain, to paint or not to paint.  I liked the blue of the round base, and decided to stick with that. Since the wood for this new base was different from that of the round base, I used a sample piece from the same 2"x10" board with eight defined square areas to check the marine blue color on this wood and the effect of multiple color washes on the color intensity.  The squares were in two rows of four.   The top row had squares with one, two, three and four coats of blue wash but were not sealed.  The bottom row had four squares with the same pattern of multiple coats of color but had polyurethane applied to them after the paint was dry.  The poly darkened the color somewhat, as I had noticed when I was finishing the round base, but I wanted to be sure what I would get with kiln-dried white pine.  The application of the sealer somehow brought out a little of the yellowish color of the pine and produced subtle blue-green color variations within the grain pattern of the wood.  I like how it looked, so I proceeded this morning to add four coats of marine blue wash to the oval base, drying between each coat, followed by two coats of glossy polyurethane.

    The result is shown below, with the base by itself and with the carving mounted on it.  I will give myself a B+.  I may make yet another one before I enter the carving in the October Spirit of Wood Show, but this one would probably be good enough for competition.  At least the bird has a visible target, and a moving one at that!

    Now, I can finally get my brain to focus back on finishing up the paint job on the osprey itself!

    I won't count the wasted hours spent over the last two days trying this and that approach to putting a fish  target on a base, but this morning's washes and finishing took about two hours, for a total of 135 productive hours spent on this carving project.

Audubon’s depiction of an osprey

      One of the greatest wildlife artists produced many paintings of birds, among them the American osprey.  I thought I would post the picture on this blog, just seemed appropriate.

Painting the underside of the wings

      I spent about three hours today painting the primary and secondary coverts on the underside of the wings.  These areas were not covered in Al Jordan’s book on carving a half-size osprey because his bird was in a resting pose, perched on a rock.  The wings were folded and their undersides could not be seen.  My task was to use the color palette he has in his book along with the numerous reference photos I have showing the undersides of the wings to create a reasonable and defensive painting job.  The secondary coverts seemed to be darker than the primary coverts, and the bars on the secondary coverts were broader and lighter in shade than those on the primary coverts.  I swallowed hard, and began painting.  Several hours later, this is what I had accomplished.

  

   Still to do are the dark patches under the wrist area, and some random dark or nutmeg-colored feather scattered around the wings and rump.  I also painted in the feather shafts, which is a time-consuming job requiring a steady hand and concentration.  At least all the shafts are done now, although I may revisit some of them before admitting that I have finished the carving.  I keep seeing individual spots here and there that look sloppy from up close, but at the usual viewing distance of about 18 inches they seem to disappear somenow.

     This carving is looking good, it may be a better carving than the Archaeopteryx, although the latter is unusual because it is an extinct animal.  Both of them have very dynamic poses, which is the only way to go, in my opinion.  I may never carve a bird just sitting on a branch or rock, too passive for me.

Three hours today makes 133 total hours spent on this carving.

Very productive day!

    It was too hot outside to do anything, so I stayed in the back room for most of the day, working on the osprey carving.  The first thing I did was to make the support for the bird, this time out of a very strong and stiff 3/16" diameter steel rod from Home Depot.  I bent one end so that the diving bird would be displayed as a steeper diving angle, and then cut off the approximately 10" support from the rest of the three-foot long rod.  The rod fit well, I liked the angle of the dive, so I was ready to mount the carving.  I drilled a 3/16" diameter hole in the base to accept the support rod,, held my breath, and mounted the carving on the base.  I am very happy with the result.

    Next, I put a few more washes of dark sable over the leading edges of the wings, and did a full wash of sable over the whole upper side of the wings and body.  I wasn't getting the dark brown I saw in the workbook and in most of the photos I have, so I used the overall sable wash to darken up the topside of the bird.

    Next, I tackled the head.  I used several washes of nutmeg to cover the dark stripe of feathers that extends from the eye back to the "cape", the upper part of the back.  Once I was happy with the size and shape of this patch done with nutmeg (which I could paint over easily if I was dissatisfied), I added some washes of dark sable.  The head ended up a little darker than the back and topside of the wings, so I had to do a little blending in the "shoulder" area to smooth out the color transition.  The crest feathers were left white, and will be highlighted at some point with a touch of nutmeg.

    After some lunch, I chose to try to finish painting the topside before moving to the more difficult underside.  The first thing I did was add a touch of the warm white/raw umber mixture to the trailing edges of the primaries, secondaries, and their coverts.  This really defined the feather edges and restored the viewer's ability to see the feather groups on the wing.  I used the same color mix, as suggested in the workbook, to paint the shafts of the primary and secondary feathers, which I had outlined in the wood burning/texturing phase of the project.  The shafts are lighter than the surrounding feather barbs and are quite prominent, maybe a little more so than I wish, but that's how they look in the workbook and in my reference photos.  I can mute the color later if necessary.

    So, what does the carving look like after today's efforts?  See for yourself in the photos below, taken outside in natural light on the picnic table.  I opened the big umbrella to block the direct sun and eliminate harsh shadows.  The first photo shows the topside of the wings with the darkened background, highlighted feather edges, and painted feather shafts.  The wing looks a little darker in the photo than it really is, not sure why. The photo also shows the fairly steep angle of attack, which I think adds a little more drama to the piece.

    The second photo shows the unfinished underside, which will still be mostly white when the painting is done but will have more barred feathers, the primary and secondary coverts, in the white area next to the dark barred primaries and secondaries.  There will also be a characteristic dark patch in the wrist area, which is present only in ospreys and helps greatly in identifying ospreys from a distance when seen from below.

    All in all, a very productive six hours of work today.  This final phase of the project, painting, is not taking as much time as I thought it would.  I am not rushing, by any means, but I am realizing how much the advance work I did in carving and texturing the feathers, head, and body is paying off as I paint the various feather groups.

    One hundred and thirty hours, and counting!

    Oh yes, one more thing.  As I look at the bird now, diving toward a somewhat abstract water surface on the base, I can't help but think that the composition needs to show a target or some sort.  I don't want anything too tacky and artificial, like a fin sticking up out of the water, but the base needs something.  What came to mind today is a subtle, fish-shaped patch of darker color on the base, suggesting what a fish might look like swimming close to the surface.  This would take some painting skill to pull off, but if I can do it, the question in the viewer's mind - "What's the osprey going after?" - will be subtly answered.  More on this later.

Painting progress

      After a rare midday nap, I got to work painting the osprey's wings.  What I focused on today was the gradation in shading of the flight feathers using the sable color - dark at the leading edge and tip, lighter on the trailing edge and base.  Doing this right involved a painting technique I haven't really used before - wet mixing. Basically, the border between the shaded and light portions of the feathers is blurred using a wet brush.  I was moderately successful, and gained experience as I went.

     The first photo below shows the underwings, with the sable bars that I painted the other day and with the shading finished on one wing.  I took this photo to document the difference between the shaded and unshaded wing feathers.

     The workbook says to shade the leading edges and feather tips dark enough so that the bars almost disappear.  So far, the bars at the very tip are almost covered, and the bars appear more distinct towards the base of the feather.  The picture above compares the shaded right underwing with the unshaded left.  The photo below shows both underwings shaded, with the added challenge of getting the degree of shading similar on both sides.  I am not quite there, and may have to add more to the left underwing tomorrow when the paint is good and dry.

     The same shading technique is applied to the primary and secondary feathers on the top sides of the wings.  I was able to complete the topside primaries and secondaries before I ran out of gas.  This shading requires a lot of concentration!

     In all three photos, the tail can be seen, with the same shading applied but not as heavily, in accordance to the workbook.

     I worked about three hours today, for a total of 124 hours for this carving project so far.

Using sable to paint barring on feathers

      With some trepidation, I began painting the barring on the wing and tail feathers using the newly arrived sable paint.  I followed the directions in the workbook, except that I adding barring to both the underside and topside of the wing at one time.  The workbook would have me finish all of the painting on the underside of the wing before even starting on the top, but it seemed more efficient to do all the barring at once.  The sable paint, being airbrush paint, has a slightly different consistency than the paint I have been using, but I practiced a little before applying it to the carving.  The results of today's three hours of painting are shown in the photos below.  The top two photos show the underside, the bottom two photos show the topside.

     Looking at the photos just now, I see I have a little work to do on the topside of the tail, but otherwise the paint job looks OK to me.  The washes of sable that will be applied over the barring will add more detail to the feathers, as will some highlights using the base coats and a little warm white.  There will be a wash or two of sable over the entire topside of the body and wings to darken the nutmeg color to a deeper brown.  Now that I have the sable, I can also paint the "face", especially the dark stripe that extends from the eyes back toward the back.  

     The painting is going faster and better than I thought, and I am encouraged.  Today's three hours or so of painting brings the total time to 121 hours.  Wow.

Base

     My sable paint still had not arrived by this morning, so I decided to work on the base.  I chose the 14” round base I found at the wood sale last weekend in Sydney.  I sanded it with increasing grits - 120, 150, 220  - on the top and edges and cleaned off the sawdust.  Since my search for “marine blue” semi-transparent water-based stain was fruitless, I decided to instead use washes of manganese blue acrylic paint, repeating the washes until I got the right shade.  Wipe the paint on, let it soak in for 15-20 seconds, then wipe off the excess, wiping with the grain.  Acrylic washes dry very fast, and this method helps to avoid the darker parches that arise when wet paint is applied over partially dry paint.  Once the surface is wiped, I used the hair dryer to dry the recently applied coat thoroughly in preparation for the next coat.  The acrylic washes are semi-transparent, and the grain shows through.  Too many coats and the grain is hidden; too few coats and the color is not deep enough.  I finally got the right balance after four cycles.  The grain shows through enough to suggest currents, and the blue is deep enough to resemble ocean of lake water.  I considered the effort a success.

     I sealed the base with several coats of fast-drying water-based glossy polyurethane, sanding with 220-grit sandpaper in between coats.  The result, shown above, matches what I had in my head.  I thought for a while that I wanted an oval base, but this thick, heavy circular base will be much more stable.  The blue color, in addition to contributing to the illusion that the osprey is diving into water, is more or less a complementary color to the brownish tones of the osprey itself.

     How to mount the bird on the base?  The visually cool curved wire idea was abandoned quickly, because the 1/8” diameter steel wire was too bendy.  The straight 3/16” dowel idea similarly failed, because the weight of the carving bowed the dowel and I was afraid that the wood would snap.  My clear acrylic rod idea may not work either, because the acrylic rods, even 1/4”ones, are quite flexible, much more so that I expected.  The latest idea involves using a 3/16” diameter straight steel rod, which would surely be stiffer than both the 3/16” dowel and 3/16” acrylic rod.  A benefit of using a steel rod is that I can bend it a little at the point of exit from the bird’s belly, thereby making the diving angle steeper.  I want to do this so that the underside of the wing (which I will spend hours painting) will show better if the dive angle is steeper.  Bending the support rod a little to give a steeper angle is a safer choice than trying to drill another hole in the osprey’s belly at a different angle.  I will pick up a steel rod this afternoon from the local hardware store and try it out.  I won’t drill a hole in the base until I know what size dowel or rod I will use and what the diving angle is.  The dormer will determine the diameter of the hole and the latter will determine just where the hole will go, because I want the target point of the osprey’s dive to be close to the center of the base, if possible.

     This morning’s efforts took a couple of hours, pushing the total up to 118 hours.  In this total, I don’t include simply thinking about the carver, which I do on my walks and before falling asleep at night.  If I counted this time, the total would be in the hundreds and hundreds of hours!  I am documented only time spend physically working on the project.

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Feet and beak

    Because I don't have the right sable color, I worked instead on the feet and on the beak.  I mixed the color suggested in the workbook for the feet and applied it.  It looked much too dark and too yellow, so I lightened it up a bit with warm white to better match the reference photos.  The color looked better, and I applied a thin wash of raw umber to bring out the carving details on the feet and painted the claws black.

    I then painted the beak with several washes of slate, followed by some washes of a mixture of equal parts of slate, black, and brown.  The washes of this mix were applied to the beak starting at the tip and working backwards toward the part of the beak with the nostrils (the cere).  This part I left the slate color, according to the instructions and the photos.  I added the darker mix to the nostril openings.  By the way, the osprey is the only predatory bird with nostrils that can be closed, a definite advantage when you are hitting the water at high speed going after a fish.  A photo of my work on the feet and beak is shown below.

    I also received in the mail today two 24" acrylic rods, 1/4" in diameter, to use for the support.  Unfortunately, they had a bubble pattern in them, and were not the clear ones I wanted.  I contacted the company, and they will send me a complimentary set of two clear rods.

    Also, we went last Saturday to a sale of wood, books, and tools in Sydney, outside of Augusta.  The sale was arranged by some of the members of the Maine Wood Carvers on behalf of the widow and family of a championship-level carver from Sydney name Gordon Harde.  The prices were right, and I picked up some pieces of carving wood recommended by the professionals - tupelo and juletong.  These are clear woods with little grain, easy to carve and well suited to power carving or hand carving. I am thinking of carving a series of small songbirds - chickadee, goldfinch, sparrow, nuthatch, junco, grosbeak, etc. - and some of the pieces are just the right size.   

    I also picked up some basswood, a nice cherry plank, and a round, 14" diameter wooden base that I think I may actually use for my osprey carving.  I had considered an oval, but the ready-made round base with good grain is tempting.  There are water-based colored wood stains available, and I found a "marine blue" color that would suggest water but still allow the grain to show through.  I may try cutting an oval base from the cherry plank as well, so I will have a choice.  The cherry has a good grain pattern.  All of a sudden, too many choices!

    About three hours worth of painting over two days, for a total now of 116 hours.