would like pattern design assistance

[Clay]

Thanks to all of you for your responses. I did some work on the pattern this afternoon (before I read the reply from David) and tried to get some flow into the design. Here is what I came up with. I'll wait to carve it this time to see if there are any more suggestions for changes.

Clay

Clay,

Very big improvement. Good Job!! Now the eye can comfortably look at this patern, and follow the flow from the top flower to the initials. On the previous pattern the eye was stopped and lead off of the piece. One more suggestion and I will leave you alone. Try putting one more petal into your flowers. This will help get rid of a lot of the backgrounding. It will also help you get depth and movement in the flower and your pattern.

Clay M.

[David Genadek]

Clay,

The second one is fine but in my mind it is a step backward. In the first one you are reaching for some higher levels of design in the second your going with same ole same ole. One of the things I saw in the first one was your use of the design over lapping the border. I think you need to be more deliberate with that so it clearly establisheses a pattern. Alternating the over lap from side to side is a cool idea. That creates a battle for position betwen the flowers and the border. Niether quite wins. If you were to make the initials larger and overlap the border on both sides the intials would become the winner and the most prominate part of the design.

I have drawn the flow line as I see it in this space with what you are trying to do. Note that I drew scrolls because they contain the golden proportions so it will give the elements a natural proportion and be pleasing to the eye. The end of a scroll is where you place the flower. Scrolls will form S's but S's don't necesarilly form scrolls. Now it doesn't matter how much fill you put in as long as everything moves the eye to along that line one way or another.

David Genadek

[ClayB]

Once again I want to thank you all for your replies.

Johanna, maybe the initials KD would show up better?

Clay, I really appreciate your help with this. Pattern drawing is something that I just don't spend enough time with so it hasn't become any easier to do. I'll try your suggestion about adding a petal to the flower to see what effect it has, but it's supposed to be a dogwood flower, and almost all the pictures I found of them show only four petals. In a conversation with Verlane once before, she told me that there is a difference between reality and art, and that art doesn't necessarily have to be exactly like reality. I do a lot of figure carving and strive for realism, and I guess that is following over into my floral carving now. Trying to add a petal will go against what I think is right, but I'll try it anyway.

David, I appreciate your comments too. I am having a little trouble grasping what you say sometime, but I would like to persue your suggestions too. Quite often when I carve oak leaves, I intentionally make them go over the edges of the border and I have had a lot of people comment that they like the look. I do too. So that might also be something to try here. I also don't have a problem with going against all the rules and doing something different. So I might just try a couple variations on this pattern just to see what I can come up with. Then I'll decide what I want to carve.

Clay

[Johanna]

KD? She can do her own stuff. I can't do nuthin'.

But a wall hanging with "JAMS" on it the next time you get bored...that would be cool. How many animals can you put in one picture? I like leaves, but maple better than oak. I don't mind scrolls and stuff, but I have more acanthus cabbage than I'm proud of. I don't have a lot of figure carving, and hey, who cares about initials anyway?

Oh, shoot, I'd be happy with an oakleaf on a keychain as long as it had the magic ClayB signature. (Please let Clay get bored. Please let Clay get bored!)

Johanna

(you better not be tossing these in the scrap bin to pound holes on or something!)

[David Genadek]

Clay,

What I am saying will become clear in time but it is a different way of looking at it all so it will seem foriegn at first. It can be a tough emotional transition you have to let go of what you think you know and de tandinize yourself.

In regard to adding a petel Clay M is well intended and is correct for the Sheridan style. I have attached a picture of the essence of the sheridan style. When propely done the sheridan style should be properly proprotioned scrolls ending in a five ponted star that shoud fit inside a pentagon. When you look at Chester Hapes work you will see this. The dog wood has a different proportional base which is an octogon. If you draw a rectangle around the one of the petals you will find that if you divide one side of the rectangle by the other it will come up .6. This is Gods Rule follow it and your work will look great.

The below pictures are not perfect they are fast examples to demonstrate a point.

David Genadek

[pete]

David, You know that I greatly appreciate the time that you have spent with me already but might you have time to do, say a 4-5 panel set of drawings to show a simple layout from start to finish? I KNOW that there are dozens if not hundreds of folks here that would love to see the progression of a 2-3 flower pattern using what you have shwn to me previously and most recently in Clay's example.

Sincerely

pete

[David Genadek]

Pete,

I would love to do that but now I'm 40 saddles behind and it is getting nice out and people are screaming.

I'm not haveing much luck finding help so right now I would feel guilty if I took the time to do something fun.

David Genadek

[ClayB]

Well, I carved this again trying to incorporate several of the suggestions that were made on the pattern. I am not sure what I think of it. I think the new pattern fixed some of the things I thought were wrong with the first pattern, but I am not sure it is what I was looking for. So I guess it's back to the drawing board once again. I have a couple ideas for doing something different that I would like to try. If anyone has any comments on this attempt, I'd like to hear them.

Clay

[Don101]

I couldnt fault the work its superbly carved, im no expert on rules for sheridan carving, your first desighn i liked i t was very clean and simple and pleasing to the eye and you could clearly see the letters which is important and to my opinion should be the main focal point, as now you have brought a lot more action in to the desighn and the lettering gets sort of lost and seems a bit bottom heavy but im no expert, have you tried the desighn with the letters central and maybe a smaller flower coming of the letters as not to make it to cluttered. Don

[Don101]

Hope you dont get affended clay but i took your desighn and played with it on the PC its only rough and maybe needs a ranking vine coming through the center between the leters it seems more balenced and you can clearly see the letters as a central focall point which i was trying to put over in my last post its probbably broken all the rules in the book as to this type of carving but im no expert, hope it helps or maybe brings up a nother idea for you.Don