Sunday, January 21, 2018

Year 18, Week 01, Day One (week 941)

Year 18, Week 01, Day One (week 941)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-20-18 Saturday

During the week, we had some bitter cold temps in the low 40s. I started a fire in the fire place to warm up the house and the flame froze. I started another flame. Both are shivering under a blanket, too cold to do anything.... a giant iceberg crashed into the Titanic and sunk her. At least that is what the fisherman said was the cause of the sinking of his row boat. It has to be gospel if it is from a fisherman. Traffic was really backed up due to slipping and sliding on the icy roads. It is either that or their normal driving style. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.

This week is the celebration of my starting wood working back in January 17 2000. Before that year, I was writing stories and building model houses for a model railroad layout. Dad kept asking me to take up carving, and I had no interest at the time. One day I decided to try it. I borrowed one of his knives and a piece of wood and carved a man with his arms down his side. The brim of the hat was supposed to go all the way around, but kept breaking. It ended up looking like Charles DeGaul. The french leader near that time.
Dad had gone through a period in learning to carve where you could see the shape of the wood he started with, as he was doing more like relief carving rather than shaping. I had made the decision that I would, instead, dig deep into the wood with my carvings. I still have my first four carvings. 
Dad did a carving style popular at the time where you have like tall cowboys, their legs straight and arms at the side. The head might be made separately and stuck on, turned to a different direction. I wanted movement from the beginning, legs bent, arms crossing the body. 
Dad had a really good way to teach me carving. “He would pat me on the head and tell me to do another.” is the best way to describe it. Other than having his stuff as examples and showing me how to make my own knives, Dad really never taught me how to carve. “A self made man is a prime example of unskilled labor”. 
It was not until the last couple years of his life that I saw how good a carver he really was. He had taken classes from some of the best carvers in the world . He made some clay platters with 3D faces of my nieces and nephews. They were recognizable. Like with my fairies, I as lucky they looked female. 
In 2003, I got a lathe and that took up a lot of my carving time. I would turn for many weeks, then carve for many weeks. Each time I swapped, it felt like I was returning to an old friend. In later years, I have done more turning that carving, though I did a series of vases with faces carved into them. 
In my carvings, I concentrated on the knife. I avoided chisels because you had to have so many of them to do anything. I figured if I learned the knife, I could master it, and would fully understand when it just would not do the job. I did find that a chisel would solve a few of my carving problems, most of the chisels were intended for relief carvings with different sweeps. 
I also used the dremmel or other power for much of my carvings. I am not a purist, where “all work must be by hand” or “Only use specific tools.” I worked from the idea that whatever gets the job done is to be used.

This year, I had a scheduling problem, health problems, a storm combining together to keep me from working wood. Some other projects also got in the way. 
Right now, my mom’s awning, where I do all my work, requires repair. It was put up years before 2000 and many of the support pipes are rusted through and needs replacement. I have no other place to use my lathe. The lathe needs a repair too. Scheduling problems prevent me from just sitting down and carving some place, especially since a lot of my carving stuff is stowed away when it was picked up for the storm. 
I am hoping this year will change. I have a life-time of wood that needs to be made into sawdust, with something to show from what is leftover. Both carving and wood turning will require retraining my body to be able to do it again. 

Will see what happens in the upcoming times.


the left hand carving was the very first I did. The second from the left was my second carving and it was a cedar board.  The left hand carving was one I posed myself to get the position right. Other than the arms crossing being done wrong, it is still a good carving. I also learned on that one that I hated sanding.... These are examples of carving deep and hiding the original wood shape. 

Year 17, Week 51, Day One (week 937)

Year 17, Week 51, Day One (week 937)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-20-17 Saturday

Some fog, solid featureless clouds, 61 degrees early morning, 62 after noon, 71 high. Light breeze that takes away any heat you have, some light foggy mist on the windshield at times.  It is supposed to get down to 56 degrees tonight. The area should be covered in a nice frost. During the week before Christmas, we got some frosty temps down to 46 at night. The ice buildup was horrible. I was able to use canals as short cuts to get around traffic. A few places when driving over bridges, the black ice build up was such that my truck fish-tailed badly.  One morning, I tried to drive over to the Bahamas on the great ice shelf that had formed, But the icebreakers kept shipping channels open so I never left the shore.. This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism. 

CHRISTMAS

The doctor said I could start wearing boots again over the healed areas of infection. My feet no longer hurts. I can walk again. It does not help that I have no endurance  now since it has been a while since I walked any distance for over a month. The wound is starting to look normal when dry, but shows red when wet. It will be a while before it is fully healed, but at least there’s no pain.


During the week before Christmas, I painted a batch of 17 cards to hand out. Some went to people at work, some went to some friends. I did keep a couple for myself I have a copy of most all the cards I have made over the years. 
Saturday, I started another batch of cards and had them finished, except for the lettering inside by Monday when they were to be given out. We usually give out presents Christmas Eve so the kids have all Christmas to play with them, or early morning if they have to go some place else. This time, the Kids parents decided they were going to a Church event in the Evening so we got together for Christmas dinner instead.
I lettered just the cards I was giving out that day plus took a few extra just in case I missed someone. My brother’s friend was there. We made a decision not to give out adult presents. It worked out well as I did not have the opportunity to do much shopping this year because of my feet. It has taken me until about five or six years ago, to fully understand that giving is much better than getting. Since then, I did not care what I got as I was happy to just give. Someone gave me a gift certificate for Cracker Barrel. That was my only gift. This year I would not have cared if nothing was going to be given out. Just being together was a true pleasure.

During the week, I finished lettering and handed out more of my cards. Some still have to be mailed out. I thought I was doing good starting as early as I did, but reality had set it quickly that I needed to start a week or more ahead of that. I had a problem coming up with a design. I had an idea for the central subject and made two attempts at painting it and saw it was not going to work. I am painting too small and using the wrong paints to be effective.
The Acrylic paints I am using don’t mix together for shading. They tend to be two colors mixed together to get the tones they have. With green, it might have some yellow for a spring green tone, red for leaf tone, black for shadow tone. A red might have yellow for something bright, blue for something dark. 
When mixing pure colors, blue and yellow make green, red and yellow make orange. Blue and red makes purple, etc. Because the paints I am using are not pure colors, you mix them and you get mud.  You basically take the colors you have and make them work as they are. The only pure colors are black and white.
With the size of the cards I am doing, the slightest slip of a brush shows. Also I am not using the right brushes. They don’t make a “knife edge” for really fine details. There is a lot of slop in the work I do on these cards. 
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The main cards I made this year. The bottom right card was never finished. It fell behind something when drying and was skipped.

Some cards I made for non-Christians.


a collection of the cards I have made over the years. some "repeats were second versions of the same card.  In the middle on the bottom was the first batch of cards I made, with a sleigh. I did not like the look of it but loved the background so the two cards on either side are the results.