Our little Country Hound is finished and has now sat patiently for his photo-op.
I’m pretty pleased with the way that this little carving has turned out. Thanks to Lynne for her ideas on this carving as I would not have come up with this composition on my own. It was fun to carve and complete.
I’ll put some additional photos on the Flickr site ( link at the side of this page ) a little bit later today.
Well, I decided on a circular base as I mentioned in the last post…so, this morning I did the routering and spent a bit of time carving an oval “braided” rug and a few hardwood slats into the top of the base. I’m just in the process of using a wood burning tool to show the braiding in the rug cord. I think that once it’s finished and painted it’s going to look pretty good.
In non-carving news, Rosie and I got a bit of snow-frisbee in today. We also learned a new trick…snow angels…kinda like a normal “roll-over” trick but done in the snow!
Here’s a quick first peak at the little pup with much of the painting completed. This weekend, I’ll apply some satin clear urethane to seal and brighten the colours and that should be about it on the figure before I start into the base on which the rocking chair will sit. I have some ideas for that but I’m sure they’ll change as I get started and add more to the scene.
So, here’s what I’ve been up to…
The hound got a base coat of ivory lightened with a bit of white. Then, in many individual washes ( very diluted paint ) of alternating milk chocolate and asphaltum browns, he got his colouring and little “spots”. Then, the figure received a very dilute wash of asphaltum brown over everything to bring out all of the little contours in the carving. Finally, I applied some yellow ochre and raw sienna in little smudges just to show that his paws, in particular, are a bit dirty here and there. After all, he is a Country Hound and should have spent at least a little bit of time close to the earth!
The overalls were painted in several washes of midnight blue. I darkened up the recesses and wrinkles with extra washes of the same colour, and then added some whitened blue to show where the high points were and where those denims may have been worn away a bit. I also added a nice green and yellow plaid patch to the knee patch that I had carved earlier. After a few hints of yellow ochre and raw sienna “dirt”, a dry brush of slightly darkened ivory was used to give the overalls that dusty and worn look that I like on the clothing that I carve.
For those interested in seeing these methods used in outstanding fashion, be sure to watch one of Lynn Doughty’s videos which you can link to off to the side of this page.
Well, that’s about it for now…hope you enjoy the progress so far and are having fun with your Christmas and Holiday preparations.
Well, I think that I’ve done about as much as I need to before putting a bit of colour to this little hound. Let me tell you what I’ve done since my last post.
The little handkerchief got a bit of checker-board paint. The colours are barnyard red and butterscotch, with a bit of highlighting over the butterscotch with bright white. Finally, the whole thing got a dry brushing of ivory to make it look a bit used. I still need to put a coat of urethane on it to brighten up the colours further…but, I like the result so far.
I also carved in a hint of some claws on all of the paws and then epoxied all of the pieces in place…the ears and the one back paw that cuddles the banjo. After that I gave the whole thing a coat of very thinned gesso. Again, I like to use the gesso where many others like to paint directly onto the bare wood. For me, the gesso serves to seal the wood and make a good base for the acrylics and it also tends to highlight any imperfections so that I can deal with them before the final paint. Normally, the imperfections are little stray knife marks or some wood “fuzz” that I don’t like. Normally.
This case wasn’t normal…once I put the gesso on I noticed for the first time that I forgot something…a tail! I guess that the overalls threw me off…but I corrected that after I stopped laughing. I made the tail in my typical fashion with some copper wire twisted together and coated with epoxy. I wrapped it around the back of the chair and I like the way that it balances the handkerchief on the other side of the carving. I’m still chuckling a bit because I have been accused in the past of omitting tails!
Hope you like the way that it’s turning out…I’m enjoying it.
Some ear trimming was the next step for our little hound. Basically, I just picked up where I left off earlier with the fitting of the ears to the arm and body contours using pencil lead as a marking tool to highlight the high spots that needed to be removed to get as tight a fit as possible. Today, I shaved down the outside of the ears and added a bit of a fold at the front of the ear and a bit of a wave where the ear flows around the front leg, or arm, in this case ( because who ever heard of playing a banjo with a leg ). Trimming the ear down went a long way to making the ear look soft and flexible like hound’s ears happen to be.
The other fun item was working the handkerchief a bit more. Again, the inner fitting had been done earlier and now it was just a matter of creating some interesting folds and waves on the outside of the cloth. Again, I tried to trim it down enough to make it look like how you’d imagine a bundle of light cloth to lay. I’m already thinking of a nice checkered pattern for this handkerchief similar to the way that I painted the hobo bindle used on my carving of Hobo and Ned.
And lastly, I put a coat of satin urethane on the rocking chair and cushion to finish it up. The urethane brought a nice glow to the wood and also made the “barnyard red” coloured cushion come to life a bit more. I still want to add some cushion ties on the back, but, other than that, the rocker is complete.
I’ve carved in the cushion for the rocking chair and have added a nice barnyard red to it to provide that country look. With the bit of dry-brushing that I did on the cushion, I’m thinking that it’s looking sufficiently worn like a good rocker should be. I put a darker stain on it and then pulled away some of the colouring on the high spots, again, to give it a well used look. When I get a bit of urethane on it, the colour of the cushion and the grain in the rocking chair will really stand out. I’m also planning to add some cushion ties when things are in the final stages to really give it a complete look.
I also did some roughing-in on the hat. I was shooting for something that looked like a big straw hat somewhere between a cowboy hat and a sombrero. I think I’m pretty close. The trick was to ensure that the hat looked like a good fit on the Country Hound…and fit around the back of the rocking chair. Took a bit of fitting back and forth. In making the hat ( two pieces ) and fitting it to the Hound’s head, I used the process of scribbling pencil lead on one of the two mating parts and then cutting away the high points where the lead marked the clean mating piece.
With all of the individual pieces together, our little Hound is coming right along. Time to start adding some detail next.
Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be heading out to Ottawa to drop off my carvings for the “Poetry in Wood” Carving Show and Competition. I’ll bring along the same carvings that I had entered in the Pickering Show of a couple of weeks ago: Hobo and Ned; and, the Three Louisiana Hounds. I’m sure that they’ll be enjoyed in Ottawa because it’s a great group of people who meet there for the show.
My location in Kingston and my links to Southern Ontario are quite nice from a carving standpoint…the Pickering Show which is a couple of hours away brings in carvers from central Ontario around the Toronto area; the Ottawa Show which is a couple of hours in the opposite direction brings in carvers from Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec; the Hamilton Show at the beginning of next year brings in Central and Western Ontario and is located almost in the backyard of my daughter’s home in Ancaster; and, the Niagara Competition brings in carvers from Southern Ontario and is a stone’s throw from my Mom’s home. So, I pretty conveniently take in the major competitions around the province. There is one other great competition that I know of in Kitchener which is in Western Ontario…hmm…I do have an Aunt who lives in those parts…just thinking.
Here’s a quick couple of photos of the Country Hound. Not much changed since my last update although I’ve detailed the rocking chair a bit more, added in some cross braces on the legs and did some wood burning on the upper-most head piece. He’s coming along.
The two rungs on the back of the rocking chair were fashioned similar to the head-piece shown below. Basically, I sketched out the contour of the back of the chair seat and cut that out of a piece of oak so that they ended up being about 1/8″ or so thick. With that, I sketched the shape of the headpiece on the curved section that I had just cut out and headed back to the bandsaw to cut out that piece. The rungs were far too small to cut out on the saw so I just carved their shape once I had the curved pieces cut out.
All put together, the chair started to look like something a Country Hound could sit on while playing his banjo. Notice again that all of the pieces are numbered so that I know what I’ve carved to fit where once it’s all apart again.
A little bit of rounding and shaping has the rocking chair at this stage in it’s development. That head-piece is starting to look a lot like a press-back chair to me, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets adorned with some carved and wood burned patterns very shortly. If you look hard at the seat, you can also see the beginnings of a cushion for the little banjo player to rest on. I’d still like to do a slender cross brace between the two rocking chair runners just to finish off the look.
Let me know what you think of it so far.
tributesinwood 