Finally starting to do something!

[CarvedTones]

Enough futzing around with the carving bench/vise and sharpening tools. It's time to get out the pencil:

a mallet and a couple of small gouges and start actually removing wood:

more later as work continues (hopefully)...

 

[sawduster]

Dood that is gonna be kewl !!

Keep sharing the WIP pics , I would be interested in following this :icon_thum

 

[ScottM]

more later as work continues (hopefully)...

Hopefully nothing. Once started it has to get finished. :wink_smil I am sure it will be great.

 

[CarvedTones]

Dood that is gonna be kewl !!

Keep sharing the WIP pics , I would be interested in following this :icon_thum

It is inspired/stolen from one of your favorite books - Irish's book of dragons. It's the Celtic dragon with its wings morphed into fins to make it a serpent instead. But it is an actual freehand sketch (I won't say which end of the pencil was used most ).

The work will continue. It's just that time will get tighter again when the kids go back to school next week and progress may slow.

 

[Trent Mason]

That's [STRIKE]cool[/STRIKE] kewl Andy! Please keep us posted on your progress. :icon_thum

 

[Bas]

Congrats on getting out of shop-mode back into wood-mode Keep them pics coming - looking good!

 

[sawduster]

It is inspired/stolen from one of your favorite books - Irish's book of dragons. It's the Celtic dragon with its wings morphed into fins to make it a serpent instead. But it is an actual freehand sketch (I won't say which end of the pencil was used most ).

The work will continue. It's just that time will get tighter again when the kids go back to school next week and progress may slow.

that is a popular pattern for interpretation ! a friend of mine adapted it and I adapted it further when I created this

my understanding is that it was an intarsia pattern right ?
I can't wait to see how yours turns out :eusa_clap I really like the pattern and it's even kewler that you drew it by hand :icon_thum

 

[CarvedTones]

A status update:

Sorry about the lousy pic. I will take some better ones after I finish the oher one and clean both up.

 

[sawduster]

:icon_thum :eusa_clap :icon_thum :eusa_clap :icon_thum :eusa_clap :icon_cheers

 

[nelsone]

Looks good! Is that the side of a box?

 

[CarvedTones]

Ed,

It's a reproduction of an ancient Norse fiddle (jouhikko). It will have this pattern in very shallow relief on both sides.

Robert,

Just noticed your question. Irish's dragon book (and many of her books) teaches you how to draw your own and apply them to different media in the first part of the book and then provides several patterns as well. They are line drawings and you have to decide what is positive and negative space yourself if you are scrolling or carving. Some are colored and/or have an example that may give you an idea of some suitable shades for painting or mosiacs (using wood or other materials).

The dragon wood cuts I posted a few days back were from a book of "medieval mosiacs" with instructions for segmentation. Yeah, I am one of those nit pickers who doesn't consider segmentation to be intarsia. Fitting together wood from different sources is really hard and deserves a distinct designation IMO. I have done far more segmentation than intarsia, BTW. But the patterns are the same.

I really like what you did with the pattern.

EDIT - Oh yeah, about drawing...
I am really not that good at sketching, but you will never find an easier media to draw on than hard maple. It has really good contrast with even light marks, is hard enough that the pencil doesn't dig and follow grain and you will never erase a hole in it - not in a million years. Erased lines disappear completely, too. Carving it is another matter. The good news is that even the mistakes (and I made a few) take so much effort that you generally have plenty of chances for recovery. The one on the other side will probably look better than this one, which is the point of this exercise.