February "What's on your Workbench?"

John Lawrence

Active member
February first already! As much as I planned to work on my birds during the month of January other things kept getting in my way. But the Westlake show is only about six weeks out so for me at least it is time to get a move on.

My personal theme for this month is to finish up a lot of decoys that have been sitting around partially finished, some for a number of years. Frequently I'll get an idea and sketch it out then cut maybe the head and carve it. Then something more important will become my priority. Every once in a while I'll move something and find one of those heads and I'll remember that original concept and start to think I need to work on this more.

My first two birds that I'll show you this month are in that vein. First up is that 2x10 redhead that I posted the beginnings of in January. I started the head at the Pymatuning show in '10. I glued up the pieces of the body in late December of last year and had full intentions of having it done by now. After a couple of adjustments to the head size and neck the whole look has changed and I have an alert high headed drake. I've been spending a lot of time on a web page called Wetcanvas recently. It a comprehensive artist's web page and I've been studying the Landscapes and Plein Air sections in particular. I particularly like the looser styles of paint you can find there.What I think I'm going to do is go for a freer more simple look to the bird, at least at this point anyway. Here is that drake redhead made from basswood and 2x10s from the Home Depot.

View attachment P1310262.jpg.

View attachment P1310263.jpg.
Years ago a group of guys and I were entering what we called the "Buddy Rig" at Westlake. The idea was just to have six guys all make one decoy in our own style and put them in the six bird rig contest. The first year we did buffleheads and we didn't even get to float them because a couple of the guys didn't quite understand the rules that they use. When we were getting close to the show it looked like one fellow wasn't going to be able to finish his hen so I started a hen just in case. He ended up finishing his bird and I just pushed that head to the back of my workbench. One day last month I found it, it's probably been laying around for at least seven years now, and decided I was going to finish her. This little girls is life size which is kind of unusual for me because I generally make everything at least as a magnum. The head and body are basswood.

View attachment P1310265.jpg.

And my third bird that I'll show you this month is a hen black duck I started way back in the spring of last year. It's and order for a fellow and I wanted to make my black duck very different than what he could get from anyone else. I have distorted and exaggerated some of the shapes and she looks pretty aggressive to me. I started painting this decoy in the late spring to early summer of last year and thing were going well, and then I just lost the concept of where I wanted to go with the colors. So often I see people depict black ducks as just dark browns, but if you have ever spent and time studying them you find that they are much more complexly colored than just that. So after a six month hiatus I got back to painting this decoy. What I did was to underlay a lot of color in the paint ranging from dark green into a red fazed purple and then a purple/blue. I've over glazed those with a color called Brown Madder which has a very red tone to it. What I'm trying to achieve is for the colors to shift as light hits it when the viewer holds it and adjust it in his hands.

There has been a lot written about what the speculum on a black duck should look like. From what I've read a 100% black duck has a dark edge to end of the secondary feathers. Mallard/Black Duck hybrids show a slight whitening to a full white stripe depending on what part of the country you are in. Here in Western Pennsylvania our black ducks must be pretty well hybridized because the ones I see all have some degree of white on those feathers. I painted my speculum using underlying light blues and gradually darkened those with French Ultra Marine Blue and then finished with and over glaze of a purple that I made up with some of the FUM Blue and a color called Rose Madder. Again I was trying to achieve that shifting of color when it is expose to different light. Ultimately I decide to make the back edge of the speculum a dark black with the idea that this hen is 100% black duck. Here is where I'm at with that decoy this morning.

View attachment P1310266.jpg.

Here is the expose wing and tertial/scapular areas.

View attachment P1310267.jpg.

So this is where I'm at on my current decoys this month.

What's on your Workbench this February?
 
i started painting up the heads with Pete last night, it has been a really cool procces that look like is going to be added to my list of hobbies

395284_2934409971044_1584926392_2488092_1462779865_n.jpg
406974_2934414091147_1584926392_2488093_210222978_n.jpg

 
At the moment my bench is filled with reloading equipment as I try to load up every hull and shell I own in January and shoot them all off through the year. Prior to bolting that down, I had completed a drake Champlain style whistler and have the paint drying on a drake cork wood duck. Both of those are destined for my sister's store on Tilghman Island in Md. I also have 2 cork greenwing teal in process. I'm trying to use up some of the misc stuff I have laying around, so these birds have 1"thick mahagany bottom boards with 2" thick black cork glued to it. The tailboards are 1/4" okoume marine plywood left over from one of the boat building projects. I figure I'll offer them up here first. If nobody wants them, I'll ship them off to Md also.

I've got a bunch of heads all done waiting for bodies. First up will be a cedar swimming black and then a cedar mallard mortuary decoy. After that, it'll be a repair project or 2 that has been piling up...

John
 
John, love the depth you are getting in the feathers on the Black Duck.


Finally I did something duck related. Hanging Redhead 11x14 acrylic on canvas. Actually finished it last night but waited until this morning to see it in better light before I signed it so it wasn't really 'finished' until February. I could change a lot on it but I'll just move on to the next, I'd never finish one if I kept correcting them.

redheaddead700.jpg


Tim
 
Like John I have spent that last few weeks clearing out projects that I started but never got around to finishing.

This first one I cut out at least a year ago. I always liked the pattern but for what ever reason it had been pushed to the back of the bench and others were worked on.

2012-02-01-Kids-and-Decoys-196.jpg




This next pair I really enjoyed both the carving and the painting of them. They also were started well over a year ago and after the carving was completed they sat and sat and sat some more. I knew I wanted to paint them clean and simple but I didn't want them to be plain. I finally got in gear and finished them up and am really happy with them.

2012-02-01-Kids-and-Decoys-194.jpg



Finally I started this pair of bachelors in late summer. The influence should be easy to pick out. They were simply an exercise in repetition of skill. I can say I have enjoyed doing these two. I can see myself incorporating some of these into the next puddle ducks that I carve.

2012-02-01-Kids-and-Decoys-185.jpg


That's it for me right now. It feels good to have the old projects cleared away and have new ones started. Ill get you guys some pictures of the new ones after i finish roughing them out. I plan to be carving a lot more due to some changes in my work life and should be able to share more often.

Ill be listing all five of these in the classifieds if anyone is interest in them.
 

My Black Duck pair has become a black duck trio. Figured I had 1 body block and one head block left from my last Duckblind order, and if I'm going to paint two I might as well paint a third. The trio will consist of one standard head, one sleeper and a searcher/surface feeder. This last one is proving to be a challenge since I really don't have a good pattern to work from. I am working form a variety of photos I've gathered of both live ducks and decoys. Its starting to take shape and I'll be slowly working on it for the next couple of days.

This is all part of what I originally planned as my "Ultimate Dozen". I don't see large duck concentrations where I live and rarely leave home with more then a dozen decoys. So my goal was to carve a dozen decoys that could cover all my hunting situations. Now that I'm getting into it I think 15 will be more reasonable and 18 might happen. For right now the plan is 6 Mallards, 3 Blacks, 3 Greenwings, and 3 Woodys. But I may add more mallards before I'm done, or even a pair of Canada geese, we'll see.

Thanks for looking guys.

425109_10100111763197556_10514206_41318316_594213242_n.jpg


397007_10100111763322306_10514206_41318319_1827610075_n.jpg


398614_10100111763457036_10514206_41318321_307343769_n.jpg


426773_10100111763526896_10514206_41318324_1949641491_n.jpg

 
I got a nice package in the mail Tues...... thank you Geoff, I didnt expect that out of the blue. I'll add thank to my collection
 
Just got this in the mail today and technically it has not made it to the workbench, but it will quickly;

block.jpg


Spalted Big Leaf Maple Burl, acrylic stabilized and double dyed,
 
Charles: I like your approach. I too took on making a surface feeder yet didn't have a lot to go on. I'd like to think it's one of my better effects.

I do have a question though. Why do you put wood filler in your side pocket seems?

Geoff and Pat: I love looking at your work.
 

Michael, I just like to run some filler through all my seams and then sand it out so I end up with a smoother, cleaner finish.
 
Pat,
Glad you liked them. I hope I can come close to the speed that you put them out at in the future. That white pine is pretty but it makes my nose run just thinking about it. The only time I use white pine is on special decoys for friends and family. I cut the stock out of the logs left over from my parents home.

Geoff,
What wood did you choose for that old squaw? thinking about it in terms for strength of the tail and I am sure it crossed your mind in the design phase as well.
 
Back
Top