Mallard

After Polo for the Cure, I spent the fall getting ready for a January show at the North End Gallery. Jack spent what free time he could working on this duck. Not having a model right in front of him presented several challenges as sculpting is new to him and he comes to it "cold" so to speak. No drawing preps, no lessons on anatomy, basically none of the things an "art student" would expect in order to work. Just his own two eyes, patience and a willingness to hone his skill. I help with drawing, anatomy as I can but his budding carving ability carries it off. Everything about this new craft allows him to appreciate the competence of the master carvers from their knife work to their capacity to observe. Jack is enjoying gaining the first steps of these skills.

I had the first week in January to address painting the duck. We didn't want it bare naked for the show opening! Painting decoys is as new for me as carving them is for Jack. After this duck and the loon, we have more questions as each has shown us weak spots in our abilities. Not a bad thing, just shows how far we've still to go! We did finally find a small book, that unlike others we have, includes many good pics of carving and painting from a chunk of wood through blocking out, dealing with details and painting. It would be excellent for us to do the decoy from this book as the exercise would help on so many levels our understanding of carving.