first and only bird.....

[Paul_Guraedy]

Well done Susie. Carving feathers can be intimidating for the first time bird carver. Soon, however, they learn that the real problem with bird feathers is that there are so dad burn many of them and the real nemesis is the boredom of repetition. You are ready for another bird.

[Dan Wegiel]

Very well done!

Dan

[susieq]

Hi Mark, Paul,
Thank you for having a look at this guy... Mark, I cannot take much credit for the pose of the pelican. That was pretty well determined by the blank that the class used. Our teacher had done one and sent it off to a guy who makes blanks from originals so all the credit goes to the teacher, Bud Evans, on that.

Bud also set the glass eyes for us and made the feet out of sheet brass and brass wire, soldered together to form the webbed feet and toes. Then we scored the metal with various bits to create the texture on them before painting. Bud also made the eyes. He couldn't find the ones he wanted so he got clear glass eyes and painted the pupil in, then white epoxy over the back of the eye....he said white paint would come off during the setting of the eyes so epoxy was the only way to go on that.

Paul, you are right about the feathers....wow. And the problem with feathers, vs beards is that feathers have to be a certain way to be realistic. The angle of the barbels have to be just so...(I showed you the good side, LOL, the angle is all wrong on the other side) and a certain number of wing and tail feathers, depending on the type of bird. It doesn't allow you to get crazy with your creation like I do with Santa beards sometimes. I enjoy being able to change course in mid stream if I get an idea, or hugely exaggerating the beards and hair. Bird carving would "crimp my style"....LOL

But the class was very enjoyable and I did learn a lot that I can carry over to what I do....
Thank you

[susieq]

Thank you Dan......
You must have posted as I was replying. Thanks so much for having a look.

[carver33]

Looks pretty darn nice to me - nice job.

[torpidhummer]

Come on Susie! We need more bird carvers to join our ranks,you did an absolutely
great job,thanks for sharing with us.
Oscar

[Orygoner]

I looked over your website with your Santas. Have to say, VERY nice work! I'm sure you'd have no trouble moving up the ladder very well on birds if you wanted. Will have to admit that birds can be an eye-strainer with all those pesky feathers and such. ;-) I do mostly birds and fish, but do little Santa things for kids and others at Christmas. They're fun to do!

Thx for sharing your Pelican. That's a lot of work for a 5 day effort, especially if you've not carved a bird before. It's good to step outside "the box" every once in a while, eh? :-)

[susieq]

thank you guys...... I appreciate the encouragement. If I ever did start carving birds....and that is a highly unlikely thing, I would go for parrots... the thought of doing a large cockatoo is appealing to me..... but no, gonna stick to Santas.
Thanks again.

ps Randy, better becareful or you will wind up in the ranks of the Santaholics. We'd love to have you. LOL

[sappy]

How about a cockatoo Santa? Seriously, great bird, I would love to have something like that to show off!

[Josef]

I'm impressed no matter what you say. Great carving all round with terrific detail. I personally do not go into such detail in my carvings so I can appreciate the work gone into this one. Thanks for sharing, well done. Joe.