APRIL - What's on your work bench?

Shawn beat me to it, Dennis. I was just going through the three pages and happened to see your widgeon which I think is outstanding. The head, neck, and in particular the beak are what I noticed on first glance. Secondly, I like that paint job a lot. I think the sun didn't help you much when you took the picture. That is a very nice decoy.
Al
 
Hey Al...

The Widgeon is a Jim Schmiedlin decoy and the two Wood Ducks are Sean Sutton decoys.

Mr. Hays is quite the decoy collector, and he is actually hunting those beautiful birds. Wonderful to see them in their natural habitat.

Check out the recent teal below from Sean's website...pure magic. Out of the park in my opinion...

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Thanks, Geoff. I appreciated the correction. Those teal are like magic! Well said, sir. What an artist! Just think of the time and patience to make it all happen and to do it right in his mind's eye. I marvel at those traits.
Al
 
About a year ago, Scott Green and I decided to do a redhead trade. He's got enough projects to keep an army of carvers busy for 3 months or George Williams about 4 days. I'm slow. I brought a bird for him to Strongsville. I could see something wasn't right by the expression on his face and the way he chose his words. That's a nice bird, Dave, but I liked the more stylish head you had before. You don't have to tell me twice, I like some flair. He was referring to the pattern I used on these quick and dirty mesquite silo heads perched atop salvaged boogie boards from the Port Aransas beach on Labor Day weekend a few years ago.

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I just picked up some sugar pine for headstock about a week ago and was itching to give it a try anyway. I never liked the bill transition on the original pattern so I tried to fix that up.

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Side by side, the heads aren't a LOT different, but when I bulked up the pattern over the last couple generations, I lost the echo from the crown bump to the bump on the back of the head. Small difference but I think I do like it.

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I did a little sanding on the comparison bird that had already been roughed out and glued earlier this week, snapped a quick picture and wondered what I wanted to work on next.

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I grabbed a head for a hen canvasback because that's what I want to paint next the most, and thought I'd carve in a nice little tertial and primary roll. When I got to that point, some temporary insanity took hold of me and I decided to bump all three wing feather groups with some knife work. Something new for me to keep things interesting. I only got the tertials roughed out before the dinner bell rang.

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Found 10 buffleheads that I started working years ago in the garage attic. Might just finish them this year to hunt with.



Joe
 
Does a peep decoy count?

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Grandson immediately tried to eat it. Good thing I used non toxic paint.

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[/URL][/img]So I have not posted any of my birds for quite awhile because I lost my previous photobucket account but now I see I can run it through facebook. Here are a few from this year, not all April but from late January on.
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