On my other post you see the full picture of my recent woodspirit. But I wanted to share with the other 'Spirit' carvers a close up picture of my 'Black-Eyes'.

Colin's spirit's inspired me to incorporate a black eye concept because I saw him use the idea in one of his pictures, of course, he carves much larger spirits than I.

Anyway, I placed a close-up picture of it on my picture trail site, in my 'bark carvings' album if you care to view it. I will continue to implement the concept because I do enjoy the effect.

www.picturetrail.com/coffeemanscarvings

Thanks Colin for your motivation and inspiration, I get so much learning experience from just viewing other carvers works it just fantastic, I hope everyone keeps posting pic's when ever they can.

Coffeeman

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Nice work Bill! I especially like the mountain man and the confederate soldier!

Bill,
Excellent work it is no wonder that you have been taking all of these blue ribbons latley. I find it very rewarding that I was able to inspire you with something as simple as black eyes. When I offer suggestions or ideas it is for every one, not that I think I know it all on the contary I have so much to learn. It just makes me feel good to be able to contribute. Black eyes is something I have always done with my woodspirits nothing I had seen before. What prompted me to do this is that the very last thing I do to my carvings is carve the eyes. It is what gives the carving its soul. I found that by making the emphasis on the eyes it made the carving. What else I do is to make sure that the eye ball is never directly in the center, I make mine always looking sideways or up or down its just my style of carving. We dont live that far apart maybe we will meet at a carving show somewhere this year. Again nice carvings thanks for sharing.
Colin

Nice work Bill. I sometimes color the pupil on my woodspirits black and sometimes not. For me it depends on how the eye looks when I carve it. If the pupil is easily noticed I leave it but if it tries to blend into the eye because of grain or light wood/bark color I will use a sharpie to fix it.

[squbrigg]

Some great looking work there Coffeeman! You are putting your talent to good use. Good for you. The black eyas do make the carving stand out more, nice addition. Perhaps an inlay of Ebony might work too?

Beautiful work on your site.

Bob

To; Dave, Colin, Cliff, & Bob

Thanks for viewing and commenting.

I agree that natural wood grained eyes are just fantastic and black eyes need to be used where the piece 'calls out' for it a little 'tweaking'.

Practice, practice, and more practice makes all of us better carvers. So we all need to continue to remove some more chips.

But knowledge gained from other carvers perspectives, tricks, suggestions, comments, pictures, etc., etc. help all of us, beginner, novice, intermediate, and professional, to grow within ourselves.

This board of talented carvers has all levels, and I've learned and grown from each of you. THANKS

Coffeeman......Buffalo NY

[Lindy]

I love those black eyes! I will have to try it on one of mine as well. Something I have started doing is on my really small wood spirits like the broach, I woodburn in the iris since they are too small to actually gouge out. I've also started adding a few details with my wood burner for emphasis in the areas I feel need it.

Lindy

Lindy,

I clicked on your pictures, very nice work. Thanks for the idea of a spirit broach, I've accumalated many small sections of cottonwood bark, will attempt a broach, good use of the wood.

Also, great panther.

Coffeeman