And Now for some Panels!

Remember these? I carved several of these about a year ago and I still have them! So I decided that they might as well be thrown into my Etsy shop as well. They still look pretty good, and it would be a shame to burn them up because they are taking up too much room. I don't know how many I'll post right away. Seeing that it is Sunday night and there usually is not a lot of traffic on Etsy on the weekends. Especially when it is getting nicer out every day. In other news, we have had several light sprinkles here and yesterday Cheryl found another moral! ( her first for the year) We went out on a walk on state land that produced for us in previous years, but found nothing this time. Michigan is getting pretty possessive of it's state land as of late. The place that used to be a simple parking spot with bike trails is now a "pay to stay" park! Don't get me wrong, they have done nothing to warrant the extra $6 to walk around on the state land. It just must mean that Michigan is broke and trying desperately to find new ways of income. Such is the government for you!

Listing the yellow bird!

Just listed the yellow bird on the cherry blossoms. It's true that cherry blossoms are not blue, but I just wanted to be different. Maybe it will match someones living room decor. Kind of a boring post tonight. Ah well, It's the weekend!

Final toilet seat carvings

Tonight I finished up an order for a customer. The toilet seat supply is totally gone now and there will most likely be no more of those. Cheryl and I have been thinking about what it would take to get us back into them, I'm not sure, but the money just isn't' there for the headache that they have become. So we are off to rethink things once again. I still might post a panel here and there from time to time, or maybe a wall hanging. We'll see! I still have to fix up the pics for the bird panel from yesterday. I'll post more later.

New panel listing!

Hey hey! I found a couple of panels in the garage I had forgotten about! So tonight, I spent time taking new pics of them, polishing them up, and listing them on Etsy. With a little luck, perhaps I can Eek out another sale. In other news, Cheryl and I went to buy some new feathers for the fly tying. Unfortunately, I didn't find any that I liked or could use. I still need new hooks and for that, we will have to go to Orvis. It's like a candy store for fly fishermen. They have just about every feather you can get ( legally) and a large assortment of hooks. Regardless, Cheryl experimented with the ones I tied up last night to see if she could seal them up in resin. With what I had, the flies were a little too big for the mold. We'll see how they turn out.

Bat house and panels! YEAH!

So tonight was "finish all the projects you started earlier" night. I finished carving in the bat on the bat house and painted it. I may touch up a little bit later with paint, but for now, it should be ready to hang. Or at least have it's picture taken. The other project was a panel requested from a customer to match one of the bass panels. She wanted one that would face the other. This weekend was pretty good for me, I sold the peacock panel and one of my boxes! (YEAH!) I was quite fond of the peacock one and I'm glad it is finally getting a good home.

Seats for the weekend!

I carved up the last few seats we could find tonight. This might be one of the last posts for carved seats until we find a wholesale seat account. There just are no more solid wood seats out there. So this might be the beginning of a career change for the midnight carver. I don't know what else I will do, but it will not be the first time I changed occupations. Let me list the things I was to become.... Teacher, cook, taxidermist, fisheries biologist, truck driver, soldier, and now woodcarver! Quite the little resume' eh? But i still have not been able to make a "comfortable" living at any of them. ( Or I just get bored of the job) So we will have to see how it all pans out. I know I was in the same boat last year at the same time. Somehow we made it to the point, but we are still in the same leaky boat. Time to shake things up! Oh! I posted a new panel on Etsy. Who knows? Maybe it will sell!

Listing New panels on Etsy

I listed two new panels tonight on Etsy. I took several pictures of other panels but I want to put those on at a later time. Hopefully to get more exposure.

Panel carving

So tonight I carved up 4 more fish panels and with a little luck we can start integrating them into our selection of carvings. Cheryl and I have decided that we are going to try to phase out toilet seats from our stores. We have tried it several times and keep going back to them so we'll see how this time round goes. Well, here are the panels.
I know I mentioned an origami elephant, but I just didn't get around to it tonight. I have been working on a bull and got one to turn out pretty good, but it may still need work before I'm willing to show it off. Have a great weekend!

Catch up carvings! Are you looking for shooting stars?

Carved up the remaining seats tonight, and finished painting the rest of the fish. You can see the difference between the brown trout that are poly ed and he rainbow/brook trout that are not. Well they all got finished tonight! A couple of things of interest that I did not post on yesterdays post. A Penitent Underwing moth. He must have just hatched because he is so close to perfect and I have ever seen. We have several of these guys in our collection, ( all slightly different species, but similar in appearance) But they have faded badly and lost that wonderful red under wing color. Oh! And tonight is a meteor shower if you are lucky enough to be where there are few lights and the moonlight can be shaded. Cheryl and I used to go out to the lake shore and count them. It's quite fun. Hope you can get out there!

Painted carving? or not... A case Study.

It has happened once or twice where people have asked me to carve but not paint a seat for them. At first, (in the old days when the customer was always right) I carved up what they asked and showed them the seat. Imagine my disappointment when they refused to pay for it because it did "not look the way they had thought" Well, this only has to happen once before you gain a little wisdom. Now I refuse to do requests that I know are going to look bad, even if the customer "thinks" they know it won't. A small study: I have carved up two panels in relief. One slightly deeper than the other. Both are carved in oak ( a very strong grain) Notice how the grain slightly interferes with the design on the non painted panel. To combat this, I carved the design slightly deeper and more undercut than normal. I could also have selected a finer grain wood to carve in ( like bass wood or maple) Without the strong shadows, the design could be lost in a strong grain wood. However, the painted panel is much more forgiving. It is carved only 1/8" deep and is completely painted ( an extreme example) The strong shadows are exchanged for colors to show off the design. I also wanted to show off a previous carving in an old cherry stump some years ago. It has been collecting dust for some time, but every now and then I like to dust it off and admire it. It is 100% carved of one piece! The antlers are attached! ( stupid me for making it so difficult) It checked quite badly, but now I just think it is part of the design. ( I didn't know about wood cracking back then.) Even with the years of dust, I thought it shined up pretty good. As for tonight. The sun once again graced us with a blue sky and a bright sunset at the beach. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!