Thread: bits n pieces

Excellent work - all of it! I love the platypus!

Claude

The Plane Bird makes me think of the life it must have had.
The Personal Safety Officer reminds me of my cat = constant critic of my cold shop.
The others are (to me) the usual extensions of your broad imagination. As such,
they are all brought off with most convincing values, as I have seen before.
Nice body of work.
Thank you.

the torso is the one for me.

and I'll leave it at that before I change my mind (again).

cheers,
shawn

I've seen a lot of carved torsos but this one had me transfixed!
It kind of brings to mind some photography & art where the light comes in through a venetian blind & the contours of the figure are dramatized in the slashes of hatched light , but then it's more than that .......... Hold on I'll have to look at it some more.

The finish on all the pieces I excellent.
The very best of woodcarving , Craft PLUS Art, original work of the highest order.

PS. Could you please send me a large helping of your creativity - Go on , you've got plenty to spare !

Mike

Thanks for posting Underfoot, I always like viewing your work, I like them all but the 2 standouts for me are the platypus in WRC because although it's fairly soft and light it can be quite difficult to work and the color just suits it well. The other is the plane just for sheer creativity.
Love your daughters safety officer but I bet it gets a fright when she fires up that angle grinder.

I am always in awe of your work Undie. The torso is particularly striking. Thanks for posting.

All the same impeccable standard that we've come to expect from you. I have to say though that the platypus is exceptional in a lot of outstanding work.

..Thanks for the feedback folks...always appreciated..

Originally Posted by Mike the knife

.......... Hold on I'll have to look at it some more.
..Ta..the highest praise..


PS. Could you please send me a large helping of your creativity - Go on , you've got plenty to spare !Mike

..there's no monopoly on creativity Mike.
..one of my mentors way back told me.."if you want to be creative, draw..everything and anything all the time"..
So I did...but realized years later that it was not about drawing...just about observing

Originally Posted by Robthechisel

Love your daughters safety officer but I bet it gets a fright when she fires up that angle grinder.

nope ...doesn't really mind...just seems to have adopted her...making sure she's doing it right..

The secret of the torso is a new high speed steel burr that I just bought that I took for a 2 hour run...

Yes absolutely ! Draw all the time anything & everything.
I do ,if you really want to understand a subject, draw it.
Like you say it forces the really close observation.
In all traditional training of carving ,drawing is the very first thing you learn.
It is the fundamental key to all art.
My "problem" is I get into drawing for it's own sake & neglect carving !
Mike

In all traditional training of carving ,drawing is the very first thing you learn.
It is the fundamental key to all art.

Mike[/QUOTE]

Glad I didn't go to training for carving because I'm hopeless at drawing, I would have quit instantly. I get lots of ideas in my head and as strange as it might sound some come to me while I'm sleeping. Thank god for google images, that's where I head to to try and find something similar to my idea then take measurements and adapt it to the idea from that.

Yes Rob I know, you CAN definitely carve wood without being able to draw, but learning to draw would undoubtedly sharpen up your observational skills & enable you to make concrete the hazy ideas in your head.
The magic of drawing is you make your idea concrete in front of you ( usually with the help of photo reference) , then you may think that it would look better if that arm was up a bit or the head slightly turned - so you try that out on paper, then you notice some part is short grained,change it & see if it looks ok.You can work much more effectively with your imagination when you can put a hazy idea down & then respond to that idea further.
Doing this a few times refines your initial idea & helps you investigate different variations on the theme.
Drawing also gives you the knowledge of proportions of human beings/horses etc & their ever so subtle contours.
Further than that being able to draw teaches you the technique/method of breaking down whole thing & being able to see each part in proportion to other parts & the whole thing - after you've drawn something , you really know & understand it in a way that is much deeper than you could hope to otherwise.
You will know already I'm sure that goggle images cannot provide the exact view you need & certainly can't extrapolate a front view when you've only got a shot from the side !
The good news is that you don't have to be able to draw like Leonardo to help your carving , you don't even have to be able to make pretty drawing ,simply a functional one & that is not so difficult with the right kind of practice. It's a learned skill NOT a talent. In very real way you can already draw because carving is 3D drawing.
Even just a " attempt" at drawing will teach you a load about your subject.
If you're interested PM. me & I'll give you some idea of where to start.
Cheers Mike.

Much of the concept concerns the functional differences between the right and left hemispheres of the human brain.
Far too many brain-injured people lead this concept to be fact. Don't poo-poo this, it's medical fact.

The left side is the analytical side. Most people spend most of their time functioning in left-side. I know I do.
The right side is the conceptual side. The popular idea is that left side doesn't want to lose control to right side.
However, for successful drawing, you have to teach yourself to use right side. Gets easier with practice and
left side becomes more forgiving with the excursions. Constant drawing prevents the switch from getting rusty.

Read Betty Edwards: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." Many revealing exercises, do them all.
They're guides to get into right side.

Another approach to the same thing is demonstrated by Frederick Franck in "The Zen of Seeing."
He contends that you have to switch from simply "looking" at something (eg a plant leaf) to actually "seeing" it
in order to do a successful drawing. He's describing the mental switch from left to right side.
a) find a picture of a human face. Attempt to copy that in a drawing. Left side will analyze and label
all the details of that face. Next, turn the picture around so that the hair is towards you. Draw again.
This confuses left side but right side comprehends that the picture is a "face" and you draw it as such.
Usually somewhat better than with left side that got hung up in the details of analysis.

b) Draw a complex leaf: all the folds and convolutions, all the highlights and shadows. See it.

Thanks RV. all of that was exactly correct , I'm a fan of Betty Edwards philosophy (but somewhat regret with her wordiness !) I prefer as expressed by the Budhha but in a different context " Look at what really is ! " .
To me this captures the real heart of drawing most succinctly .
It is our concepts which get in the way of direct experience & therefore good drawing, that's what I tell the people I've taught to draw - I know , I'm saying the same thing as you !
I have found that while it is essential to contact the "right side " of the brain to make any kind of decent & worthwhile drawing you do need a dash of he left side too ,so that measuring & proportion may be balanced with direct seeing , it's a balance thing , don't you think ? To keep jumping from one side to he other , as appropriate.

Cheers Mike

nice work undie

the torso is that a older piece reworked , you got the curves down pat