|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||
|
 |
| Carving
Demo - Great
Blue Heron First Prize (Advanced) - Fraser Valley Waterfowl Carving Competition |
|
 |
Let's see how this award winning Great Blue Heron was crafted.. |
 |
After I have draw out the design and create the template of the The Great Blue Heron, I'll have to decide how to fit the template in the material efficiently. Heavy tools was used to cut out the rough shape of the Blue Heron. |
 |
Once the rough shape has been cut out, I'll have to refer back to my template and find out the contour of the body, mark it on the wood. |
 |
I have to start using hand tools or rotary tool to refine the body line of the bird. As I'm sanding down and refining the bird, it becomes more and more critical that I have to always check three dimensionally to make sure I'm keeping the shape as close to the template as possible, one can easily be over work and lost important shape at this stage. |
 |
Sand the body to get rid of the carving mark. feather details is added at this stage. This is a very important stage because the size of the feather has to be exactly the same as the real bird, everything I'm going at this stage has to follow the nature's blue print. |
 |
Carve out the general shape of the feather, I have to observe very carefully the direction of the feather and how they overlapping each other. |
 |
This is the most interesting stage - a lot of people is wondering what made the feather looks so real... The fine line of the feather was burn out, it takes a lot of skill and understanding of feather in order to do a good job, the feather has to looks soft, natural and lively. |
 |
After the feather and the body is done, the glass eye was installed and the whole body is ready for assembling.. |
 |
Now, there is another very important part of the work we have to work on - the feet. It is important for a waterfowl carver to provide strong support to the artwork. This Great Blue Heron is a live size the the body is a solid piece of wood, so the bird feet have to be able to provide balance and support to the whole body. |
 |
Being a retired engineer from Air Canada, I have been making and repairing aeroplans for the past thirty plus years. I work a lot with metal, so apart from wood, metal is my another specialty.
|
 |
After I make sure the support is good and the position and angle of the feet is right, I wrap the metal support with wood, refine the shape and carve the texture of the feet. |
 |
This is what it looks like before colour. |
 |
Done! |