The Race to catch up!

So we sold 4 seats today and I carved up 5. You may be asking what kind of math is this? Well, you see, through some "Enron" accounting to keep the carving business afloat, there was a little financial juggling that means we have to use money for seats and pay the bills. It's rather complicated, but bottom line is we are getting the seats out a little later than normal. Regardless, there were some seats that have not been carved up in a while. Namely, the zebra. And, my latest Anime:

One lonely seat

Just a quick post to show off the one seat I carved up tonight. It's sad and lonely to be the only seat to be carved up. We have now went two days with no sales. the same thing happened last year, but it is no fun.

Origami Sunday!

So tonight I worked on a little origami. Namely the crane. I had an idea about showing movement in the paper by having several birds staggered during flight. I have not messed with it much, I just basically mounted them on small wooden posts. Our picture set up is not the best either, but you should at least get the idea. As promised, an origami bull. A failed one. The other attempts were just bad, but the bull project is still on going. Have a great week!

Panel painting

So I finished the painting of the panels. I took a few step by step pics of the painting process. Nothing fancy, just a hint of what goes into the layering process.
Now all I have to do is wait for the poly to dry and They will be ready to be listed tomorrow! Still no luck o any new origami. My latest attempt ended with disappointment. I should take a pic just to show off how awful a new sculpture can turn out when you are trail blazing. It will only prove that I am no master of origami. Yet..anyway.

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!

The end of a slow week

Have you ever just wanted a week to end? Well, this week has been very slow, sales wise, and there comes a time when it starts to get annoying. Well, enough complaining! I carved up 4 seats tonight. I have several more panels I will work on tomorrow. For the rest of the time, more Origami! Another swan and Pegasus. I really love the way the wet folding turns out. How the sculpture keeps its shape. Each of these are folded slightly different from previous attempts. The changes are subtle and probably remain unnoticed to the untrained eye. Every time I fold one of these, I experiment a little more to see what I can do. I will work on my elephant again. It did not turn out very well for this first attempt. Maybe in tomorrows post!

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!

Sunday STORMS!

So Sunday was just a normal day when the dark clouds rolled in. We were planning on carving seats same as usual, BUT a small wind whipped up and put us out of business for two days! We were on the road and I didn't even think the rain or wind was that strong. It lasted 5-10 minutes TOPS! In that time. See what it did to our neighborhood:

The power is back on now, but we lost everything in our fridge because we were out of power all night last night and all day today! The power guys did a great job getting the power back ASAP. Folks all the way from Saginaw and Kalamazoo! I guess one person got killed in Grand Haven when a tree fell on his car, killing him but leaving his wife and baby unharmed! Not to be insensitive, but to me, this proves that when your time is up, it's up! ( the Statistical value of being killed by at falling tree while driving down the road while no one else in the same vehicle was unharmed has GOT to be Impossibly low!) To brighten things up! Origami Hummer! Well, it's late now and we had to burn the Midnight oil to finish the seats tonight. I'll post more tomorrow, when I'm not so tired. ( No power = no lights, internet, carving, airconditioning, or contact with customers who may or may not be sending questions about the orders that can't go out! Talk about stress!

What to do on your Birthday..

Why, Carve! Of coarse! This IS a carving blog after all ! Today the weather had suddenly changed from a cool 65 to I don't know what but HOT HOT HOT! And Humid! So, I spent the majority of my time inside, carving another set of wall hangings. Nothing new or fancy, just fish this time. Oh, right, It is er...was my birthday. I'm 39. Is that old? I don't feel any older. In fact, I'm probably more immature now than ever! Will I notice any difference at 40? Well, you are only as old as you feel, so I will forever remain 24 at heart. I have not posted any cat pics in a while, Here is the latest from Rasha inspecting Cheryls wristlet line.

Painted carvings, BATS! And some more origami.

finished painting the toucans, Now I just have to poly them and attach a hook to the back. We'll see if anyone likes them enough to purchase them. A wonderful surprise today showed the bats have returned to the bat house, and Boy are they stuffed in there! It's crazy, because I have about 10 other bat houses up that no one seems to want to investigate. Granted, it took 3 years for them to warm up to the one they love now. I still want an army of bats flying around in my backyard. For now, I'll be happy with these little guys. As for Origami, I wet folded a beetle. Not too bad, but it didn't turn out much different from my other beetles. I may try it again later to give it a little more character.