[squbrigg]

Great job, love his expression, the hat is unique and draws your eye. A curious piece, kids will feel his hat got that way from sliding down all those chimneys!! Well done, beautifully carved.

Bob

[bygeorge]

I love it! Could you please tell me how you paint the beard? I really like the dark shadows.

BYGEORGE,

Thanks for asking, I'll explain what I've done here and hopefully be able to pull up a pic of the piece while I was painting it.

On Santas, I think its important for the brim of the hat to be a different color or shade of white than the beard and hair. With that said, I'll leave pure white for the brim (or some other unique color). So for the hair on this piece, I painted it all a "creme white" actual name was Satin Creme, then I dry brushed on the high spots, pure white, then dry brushed on over this some grey, to give the beard & hair some silver/grey hairs, then dry brushed over again pure white in areas that I thought were a little heavy in the grey. Then I sprayed the whole piece with Deft clear finish, and then went over the whole piece with some antiquing medium, dark brown, and wipe off until I had the look that I desired. Then sprayed two coats of deft again.

Here i sthe pic prior to antiquing but finished painting, you;ll need to click on the prior pics to see the completed pic, it wouldn't let me download it again into this post.

Hope this helps you out and again, thanks for asking.