John Lawrence
Active member
I'll start this month a tad early as I will be busy all day tomorrow. Well, tonight marks the end of seventeen days of vacation for me. I did manage to get out four times to hunt, three for pheasants and one for ducks, but my focus over the last two and half weeks has been painting decoys in preparation for Easton next week. I have spent between seven and nine hours most days trying to make the right colors. At the same time I wanted to try a few new ideas on a redhead in particular and a couple of mallards. My goal was to finish seven birds. Well I didn't manage to complete that goal. As of right now I have finished three and the other four will be completed withing the next two days.
I'll show you the mallards first. What I did here was to make a hybrid of the Toronto mallard I showed last month and something more like my normal style. What that means is that I used aspects of both in the shape. Now for the paint I wanted to stay very dark, something along the lines of a well aged out bird that has been taken care of well. This is what I came up with.
View attachment PA310165.jpg.
View attachment PA310166.jpg.
On this second mallard I found it difficult to photograph because I turned the head so far to the side that it throws the camera perspective off. This is a look at it from the back left.
View attachment PA310171.jpg.
Now on to the Redhead. I'll tell you honestly that I have given some thought as to whether or not to show this decoy tonight. I consider this to be a real experimental piece. I have wanted to do something completely different for a while and this ended up being what I choose to play around with. Last year I took two super magnum pied billed grebes to Easton with me. I had made them before the Westlake show and had them there in 2010 but they didn't get too much interest. I thought that maybe I had pushed the shape and paint a little too much. But Easton can be a different story as I found out. I had told several of my regular customers about the grebes and there seemed to be some genuine interest prior to the show. Several of the people I had told about them came to the table right when the show opened. This is a couple who have been buying my decoys for years and they want unusual pieces so I thought that these grebes would be just what they might like. She held one and he held the other and the started discussing which one they like better. Well, both liked a different one and they told me that they wanted to walk around a talk about which one they would take. While this was going on there was a lady standing at the other end of the table looking at the grebes. As soon as my regulars put them down and walked away she came right over and picked both up. Within five minutes she walked away with both of them. This all went down in about the first 30 minutes after they opened the doors on Friday. Several of my friends who are dealers and have tables in that same general area saw what went on and commented that I needed to make more pieces like that. I had intended to make more of the super magnum grebes but a few Labradors got in the way and I just never got around to them this year. But I wanted something along those lines that was so different again for this year and this became a redhead. Once again I used some of the Toronto aspects mixed with some of my normal style. What I find somewhat uncomfortable about this decoy is that even though the head is in the correct proportions to the length off the body because it is so wide and the sides drop off almost straight to the bottom the head looks a little small, but so did those grebes. So I decide to go with the shape as it was. Now for the paint every once in a while I can be coerced into refurbishing a beat up old decoy. A couple of years ago I did that for a Walter Bailey Redhead and I used that as my theme for this decoy. Once again very dark.
So after all of that here it is.
View attachment PA310175.jpg.
View attachment PA310176.jpg.
So these are the three that are done as I write. I hope you like the change of direction. If you are planning on making to Easton next week please find me in the High School Gymnasium and say hello.
What's on your Workbench this November?
I'll show you the mallards first. What I did here was to make a hybrid of the Toronto mallard I showed last month and something more like my normal style. What that means is that I used aspects of both in the shape. Now for the paint I wanted to stay very dark, something along the lines of a well aged out bird that has been taken care of well. This is what I came up with.
View attachment PA310165.jpg.
View attachment PA310166.jpg.
On this second mallard I found it difficult to photograph because I turned the head so far to the side that it throws the camera perspective off. This is a look at it from the back left.
View attachment PA310171.jpg.
Now on to the Redhead. I'll tell you honestly that I have given some thought as to whether or not to show this decoy tonight. I consider this to be a real experimental piece. I have wanted to do something completely different for a while and this ended up being what I choose to play around with. Last year I took two super magnum pied billed grebes to Easton with me. I had made them before the Westlake show and had them there in 2010 but they didn't get too much interest. I thought that maybe I had pushed the shape and paint a little too much. But Easton can be a different story as I found out. I had told several of my regular customers about the grebes and there seemed to be some genuine interest prior to the show. Several of the people I had told about them came to the table right when the show opened. This is a couple who have been buying my decoys for years and they want unusual pieces so I thought that these grebes would be just what they might like. She held one and he held the other and the started discussing which one they like better. Well, both liked a different one and they told me that they wanted to walk around a talk about which one they would take. While this was going on there was a lady standing at the other end of the table looking at the grebes. As soon as my regulars put them down and walked away she came right over and picked both up. Within five minutes she walked away with both of them. This all went down in about the first 30 minutes after they opened the doors on Friday. Several of my friends who are dealers and have tables in that same general area saw what went on and commented that I needed to make more pieces like that. I had intended to make more of the super magnum grebes but a few Labradors got in the way and I just never got around to them this year. But I wanted something along those lines that was so different again for this year and this became a redhead. Once again I used some of the Toronto aspects mixed with some of my normal style. What I find somewhat uncomfortable about this decoy is that even though the head is in the correct proportions to the length off the body because it is so wide and the sides drop off almost straight to the bottom the head looks a little small, but so did those grebes. So I decide to go with the shape as it was. Now for the paint every once in a while I can be coerced into refurbishing a beat up old decoy. A couple of years ago I did that for a Walter Bailey Redhead and I used that as my theme for this decoy. Once again very dark.
So after all of that here it is.
View attachment PA310175.jpg.
View attachment PA310176.jpg.
So these are the three that are done as I write. I hope you like the change of direction. If you are planning on making to Easton next week please find me in the High School Gymnasium and say hello.
What's on your Workbench this November?
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So far, I've just base coated one of the drakes in oils. I just got some new Old Hollands oils to try out and I'm really looking forward to blending and pushing my luck. John, that redhead is inspirational! I can only hope to get that dark "smokey" look on my pintail. If this one doesn't work out, I'll try again on the snuggle head, hehehe.
