Carving Kate's wren

[ClayB]

Kate shared a picture of a wren that she was carving a while ago. I really liked the detail in the pattern and wanted to try it out. She was kind enough to send me her pattern. I started on this awhile ago, but got side tracked on another project. Since ND is closed this week, I got back to the wren yesterday. I thought I'd share some pictures of my process for carving and feathering the wren.

To start with, I cut the outline of the wren with the swivel knife, beveled it, emobssed the leather from the back side and filled it with putty. I didn't get any pictures of those steps, but I've covered them before in some of my other projects. I think I put a little more putty on the backside of the wren than I should have. It was a little difficult to get the background to set back down, but with quite a bit of work, it did lay down. In this first picture, the project has been rubber cemented to a piece of cardboard and back grounded to flatten the leather around the bird down.

The next step is to start bringing out the details in the feathers. I used a figure beveler for the wing feathers, and a modeling tool for the smaller feathers. Beveling on a project once it's been embossed and filled with putty is different than on a flat project. You dont have a hard surface under your leather, so it may take several passes to get some depth. Your beveling can also get pretty choppy and you may need to use a modeling tool to clean it up and get it smooth.

Rough bevel in the tail feathers.

Now I've moved on to the head. The eye and beak are beveled in with a small figure carving beveler. The eye isn't taking shape very well yet. Most of this work is done with the leather dry, but to get some detail into the eye, it's going to have to be wet a little. The different areas of feathers are put in with a modeling tool. I use the pointed end of the modeling tool and kind of jabbed the end into the leather to get a ragged edge to the different feather areas. I wasn't real happy with the look, so I went over these areas again with the end of a pointed beveler making the impressions as close together as possible.

Here's where we're at so far.

Now we're ready to start the feathering. A lot of the feathers on this bird look almost hair like. So I decided to put them in with the multi blade hair knife. You could do something similar with a regular hair blade, they just wont stand up like they do with the multi blade knife. I started at the beak, pushing the tips of the knife into the leather and pulling them up. This makes really tiny hairlike texture. I made this same texture on the forehead.

Then use the multi blade knife by dragging the blades in a forward stroke to make the tiny hair like feathers over the eye.

In this picture, the eye has been wet and shaped with the modeling tool. It is rounded and smoothed out. The multi blade knife was used to make hair like feathers on most of the head and onto the neck and chest. A scalpel is used to slice into the leather, creating small feathers. The scalpel is held at a very shallow angle and the slice just goes slightly under the leather.

On the larger wing feathers, a center vien was drawn in. This can be done with the back side of the scalpel blade, or with a modeling tool. Then the multi blade knife was used to cut in the serrations on the feathers.

Then a scalpel is used to slice slightly under the feather to seperate them.

Texture is added to the feet and the tree branch with a modeling tool. On the branch, I first put in texture by rubbing some horizontal lines in with the modeling tool. Then I took the tip of the modeling tool and pushed in some small holes, and roughed up the modeled in lines.

Edited March 25, 2009 by ClayB

[BearMan]

Clay, As always,,, a Very good description!

[mendedbowl]

Beautiful work Clay, amazing details

ken

[leatheroo]

lovely birdy clay, thanks for taking the time to show the technique you use.

[ClayB]

Ok, here's the painting process.

I start out with a coat of Drake's X-1, an acrylic sealer. I use this for 2 reasons. First, I put it on a small area of the carving at a time, and then lift and shape the feathers with the tip of the scalpel. When the sealer dries, the feathers will remain in that shape. Second, the sealer keeps the acrylic paint on top of the leather instead of soaking into the leather. If you make a mistake with the paint, you can somewhat wash it back off if you are quick. Filling a brush with water and going over the mistake will dilute the paint and the tip of a paper towel will remove most of the paint. You can repeat the process a couple times if you need too. In the same way, you can sometimes blend the acrylic paint colors. Once the paint is fully dry, it is pretty permanent so you have to do this fairly quickly.

Here the X-1 has been applied and the feathers slightly lifted.

Starting with the paint. I put some Liquitex Turner's Yellow and some Ceramcoat Light Ivory in my mixing tray. I added a little of the light ivory to the yellow and painted the chest of the bird. Then I used the light ivory on the forehead and the lower portion of the head. Whenever I use acrylic paint, I always mix it about half with water to make it very runny. It may take a few coats to get the color I want, but it's easier to build up color than to take it off. It also doesn't gunk up and fill in all the carving that you have done.

The body of the wren was colored with a watered down coat of Ceramcoat Raw Sienna. This color is almost the same color of the leather.

Ceramcoat Charcoal was used to add the stripes on the feathers, the eye, the base coat for the beak, and as an outline for the small feathers above the eye.

Light ivory was used to color the thin line of feathers over the eye and added over the bottom portion of the head. I light coat was put over the beak, then wiped with a finger to blend it into the charcoal base coat. It was also used on the thin ridge of feathers under the eye.

Light ivory was dry brushed over the yellow on the chest of the wren. To do this, paint is applied to the brush, then it is wiped onto a paper towel until almost all the paint is gone from the brush. Sometimes you actually have to really scrub the brush on the leather to get any paint off the brush, but it blends very well that way.

Light ivory is used to add the stripes to the tail feathers and the spots on the bottom wing feather. It is dry brushed on the rest of the wing feathers for a high light.

To color the branch, I first used a very wet coat of charcoal for a base coat. Then I dry brushed over that with a very light coat of light ivory. I used my finger to wipe over the white and blend it in a little.

The legs and feet were colored with a very tiny drop of red mixed into the light ivory to make a very pale pink. A light coat of very watered down charcoal was used over this for shadows and to bring out the texture in the feet.

At this point, the coloring is finished. I then sprayed on a couple light coats of Plaid clear matte acrylic sealer. This seals the paint. Then I painted over the eye with Ceramcoat Gloss varnish. I also put a light coat of this on the beak and the claws. On the beak and the claw, I don't want them to shine as much as the eye so when it's still wet, I touch my finger to the varnish. It still has a wet look when dry, but not shiny like the eye. I don't put a white highlight in the eye like some people do. The varnish picks up a reflection from any light in a room and gives a realistic highlight to the eye. It will almost follow you around the room from whatever direction you look at it.

Looks like I'm out of space, so the final picture will have to go in a seperate post.

Edited March 25, 2009 by ClayB

[hidepounder]

Terrific tutorial, Clay, and beautiful work as always! I specially appreciated your process on painting. It is very informative for me because I do so little coloring. Beautiful!

Bob

[ClayB]

Here's the finished piece.

[ClayB]

Thanks for the comments all of you on this. It was a fun piece to do. It actually turned out better than I expected. I am wishing I wouldn't have just started it on a piece of scrap. Coloring is something I have struggled with for a really long time Bob. I am finally getting to where I like some of the stuff I paint. If it helps you or anyone else out at all, that's great, and what I was hoping for with this piece.

[rhall]

Nice work Clay I was waiting for that bugger to fly away!

[CitizenKate]

Hi Clay... slow response - I've been a little tied up the last couple of days - but WOW, I really like the way you did that! It borders on photo-realistic, very life-like. I have got to start playing with those textures more.

Thanks for showing us the process you used to do this piece. When I get some time, I'm going to take another stab at doing it this way.

Kate

[Clay]

Ernie!!

That is very nice!! Now that you have taught this to the every one here on LW.net you should go south one state and give a class on it!! I think I know someone who would be happy to host it. It would be lots of fun!!!!!

How about it everyone? Don't you think that ClayB would do a great job with this beautiful bird as the subject of a weekend class?

Bert

[jbird]

Thanks a lot clay great stuff.

Josh

PS clay would be fantastic and I would pay for it.

Edited March 26, 2009 by jbird

[mendedbowl]

showing how this is done in a class would be great..but i would love to see this on DVD also.

i'm sure there are many people like me who learn better by watching something over and over again. (i have a large and still growing collection of DVDs from artists such as Robert Beard, Rene Berends, Shirley Peterson, George Hurst, and Chuck Burrows, and i've watched each one several times.)

i think it would be a wonderful learning tool, and a way to archive great artists for future generations if tutorials such as this one were also committed to video. (i know i would love to buy videos of figure carving such as this wren, motor cycle seat construction, armor making, floggers and paddles, corsets, and other leather garments...this is just my wish list, i'm sure there are many other topics that would be desired by others.)

Clay you're a gifted artist, very clear with your step by step explanations, and this wren is beautiful. please consider a DVD video.

ken

[TomSwede]

You've done it again Clay!!!

That wren is so lifelike and beautiful!!!!

Tom

[yaklady]

Ernie!!

That is very nice!! Now that you have taught this to the every one here on LW.net you should go south one state and give a class on it!! I think I know someone who would be happy to host it. It would be lots of fun!!!!!

How about it everyone? Don't you think that ClayB would do a great job with this beautiful bird as the subject of a weekend class?

Bert

I say go for it, I'm there! Ernie is definitely ready to start teaching. No one out there puts as much effort into showing how it's done than he does.

Clay, ClayB that is, I am excedingly impressed by your attention to detail and the manner you conciensiously take pictures of every step of the way, making it clear to anyone and everyone exactly what it is that you do next. You are already a teacher, even if you haven't had people sitting in front of you while you're teaching. Most people learn much better from a living, breathing being than from even an intense structure of pictures like yours. You should seriously consider going out and giving lessons. I'm willing to bet that you would draw a croud.

Your fan,

Kathy

[ClayB]

Thank you all again for the nice comments.

Bert, this is actually something I'd feel fairly comfortable trying to teach in a couple days. We'll have to figure out the details. Just make sure Kathy is there to take over if I blow it!

Ken, I have a digital video camera and I played with it a little last year. One of these days I'll have to set it up again and see what I can do with it. There's been talk about having videos here on the forum someday, so you never know.

[Tina]

Fantastic little bird Clay:-)

One of my favourites to watch in the garden, always a buzzy bee and fun to observe.

You really caught the essens of this small bird, I also like the coloring loads

Always a Clay-fan

[gtwister09]

Clay.

Not that you need anymore encouragement but the classes would be great as well as DVDs. Stunning work as ALWAYS!

Tina said it best... Always a Clay-fan

Regards,

Ben

[ClayB]

I don't know what else to say. I never expected to have fans.

[Crystal]

Clay -

You did a fabulous job on the wren! I am glad to see it popping up as your avatar, it deserves some showing off, especially since you did him on a piece of scrap...

Thank you for taking the time to do a write-up. I don't think you are allowed to call yourself "color challenged" anymore. I will second or third or fourth the motion that you should teach more classes. I think you are a natural for it.

Of course you have a fan club! Start teaching classes so we can get promoted from fans to groupies.

Crystal