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.

Painting delay for the wings

      The next step in painting the wings of the osprey carving involves the used of a dark sable color, almost black, for the banding and shading on the tail and flight feathers.  Unfortunately, when I sat down at the bench today, I learned that the sable color had I ordered is not dark at all, but almost like the nutmeg brown.  I tried darkening it with several different possible complementary blue shades that I have, but couldn’t match the color swatch in Al Jordan’s book.  I tried using black to darken the sable brown, which produced something much closer to the published color, nut just a little dead-looking.  It might work in a pinch, since the color it produced was close to the color in the workbook, but I want the colors to be the same as used by the original carver/artist. 

     I then had an insight - Al Jordan used an airbrush to paint much of his carving, so I looked into airbrush acrylic colors.  Bingo!  On a carving supplies website I found the very dark sable he used, manufactured by Chroma, and ordered some.  I checked first to see if airbrush colors can be used with a brush, and they can.  The only difference between airbrush acrylics and those from a bottle or tube is that the airbrush colors are diluted in order to pass easily through the airbrush nozzle.  This actually helps, because I would not have to dilute it much or at all to use it as a wash over other colors.  I will see when it arrives, whenever that is.

  In the meantime, I may do some painting today on other parts of the carving, such as the feet, just to get something done and not lose momentum.

Painting has begun

    I added a second coat of gesso last night, to prepare for today's painting session.  I am following the painting guidelines in Al Jordan's half-size osprey book, although not necessarily in the same order because of the difference in the poses of his carving and mine.

    I started by applying three coats of a dilute mixture of 90% warm white and 10% raw umber on the undersides of the tail and the primary and secondary feathers.  Once that was completely dry, I turned the carving over and applied three coats of a thin nutmeg brown color over the entire back of the body, tail, and wings.  Not much of this nutmeg color will show through at the end, but hints of it will still be there.  The back and upper side of the wings will be much darker when the painting is done.  Here are the photos:

    The colors and patterns don't look quite right at the moment, but I am trusting the professional's painting instructions.  The dark spot on the bird's breast between the extended legs is the hole where the clear acrylic rod will be inserted to support the bird on the stand.  Speaking of the stand:  I have decided to make the stand an oval, and I drew an oval shape on the practice stand using the old trick of three pins and some string.  Worked like a charm.  I will cut out the oval shape with my saber saw and set the bird on the stand to see if it is stable.

     Lona took some photos of me working, a couple of which are posted below.  The pages visible in the background are from the painting section of Al Jordan’s book.

    The next painting steps will be to add dark bands to the undersides and topsides of the tail feathers and to the primary and secondary feathers on the wings, which will be difficult for an amateur painter like myself.  these bands are visible in the pictures in the book in the background.  It will require some careful planning, matching of the bands on the upper and lower sides of the feathers, and some washes of a darker color over these feathers to blend the colors together and accentuate the leading edges of the feathers.  I will just follow the instructions and see what happens!

    Enough for now, the painting took about two hours, since I had to let each layer of paint dry before adding the next.  The reasons for using thin washes of color is to preserve the texturing of the feathers, which took such a long time to do.  One thick layer of paint would fill in all the burn lines representing the barbs of the stiff feathers; three thin washes will achieve the same color but preserve the feather details.

    Total time: 113 hours.