A King is Born

I finished up the carving portion of the torso for the King last night.  I still need to give the fur around the neck some texture with my Dremel to top it off.  I'll try to get that accomplished over this busy weekend.  I also need to give the king a crown and some bling to make him look royal.

I'd love to know what you think so far, so pleas leave a comment or drop me an email.  Thanks for looking.

The King's Head

As most of you know, I have an ongoing theme of Medieval Busts that I have been carving for the last two years or so.  When I was remodeling the Carvings Gallery Page last week, I realized that I had omitted the most important figure from the court.  The King!  Well, I just had to do something about that.  I went out in my shop and found that the piece of Quaking Aspen (Populus Temuloides) that I have had drying since last year was ready to go.  This is a fantastic wood for those of us out here in the mountains of the far west.  It carves very much like basswood and I can get a whole pickup truck load for about the same price as I can have a two-foot-square box of Minnesota basswood shipped to me.  I carved “The Sheriff” out of aspen and he turned out great, so I thought I would give it a try for my King.

Here is what I have done so far.

I really wanted to give him a strong, majestic jaw line and I believe I achieved my goal.  This smiling old monarch should look great standing next to his frowning, uptight queen.  It still needs a little sanding and some woodburning to highlight the deepest recesses and provide a boarder for when he gets painted.  I hope to get started on the torso portion of the bust tonight, and I promise to make regular posts of the progress I’m making, so check back soon.

I'm Back!!!

Wow!  Has it really been that long since I've posted?  I can’t believe you all are still hanging around here, but, I’m glad that you are.  I offer a +huge thank you to all of The Old Stump supporters out there.

Now that the baby is starting to sleep a little better at night and the remodel work on my girls’ bedroom is finished, I’m ready to get back to some serious carving and knife making.  As you may have noticed, I have made a few improvements to The Old Stump Blog.  If you look up at the top of this page at the page list, you will see the addition of two new pages and the deletion of two others. 

First of all, the Carving Bench page was removed from the Blog.  I hardly ever posted any pictures there since I usually posted them here on the Home page.  I also removed the Picture Gallery page.  Now, don’t worry about not being able to view my finished carvings.  All I really did was improve the page with bigger pictures, added descriptions of each piece, provided better links to more photographs of my carvings, and changed the name to Carving Gallery.  I hope you will stop by and have a new look.  I wouldn’t mind if you purchased a carving or two either as I’m quickly running out of shelf space to display them and would much rather send them off to a new home where they can be appreciated.

The second page that I added was a Custom Orders page.  My hope is that this page will be “the” place to go for ordering a custom carving knife to your own specifications.  It shows examples of the different blades and handles available and gives an in-depth description of each.  There is also a cost breakdown available showing the prices for the different styles of knives.  All knives fall between the $30.00 and $40.00 mark and will be made to your own specifications.

Now, it’s time to get out the toolbox, strop a few knives and start making some chips.  Once again, thank you to everyone for your patience and the support that you give me and The Old Stump Blog.

A New Knight

I know, I know!  It's about time that I get around to posting something.  I've been so busy with our new baby, remodeling our house, and a half dozen other things that I haven't had time to sleep, let alone post anything.  In fact, I have the baby in my arms right now and trying to type with only one hand.  Kind of slow going! 

Thanks for sticking with me and not running off to someone else's blog.  I'm also down to only one knife available for purchase in the Knife Gallery.  MAN I'M BEHIND!!!  I promise to spend some time next week and get a few more made.  I just got in a shipment of some really beautiful wood, so the handles from the next batch should be something spectacular.

I hope to get more time to do some serious carving soon.  In the mean time, here's a little project that I've started working on.

I thought that I would have some fun and carve another knight.  The face turned out really nice.  He has kind of cocky grin, like a knight would have while looking down on the peasants.  I've just started roughing out the body, so not much to see there.  I thought that I would make him kind of short and skinny and give him a really big shield and maybe a spear or polearm, something tall to accentuate his small stature.  I'll trick him out with some other addons so he looks snappy.  He should be a handsome fellow if he works out like I hope.

Thanks again for sticking with me.  Here are a few more pics of the head.

Cooling His Heels Completed!!!

The long journey finally came to an end this weekend, and I finished my scene.  I know that I've said this before, but it turned out better than I had hoped. 

I think I achieved that relaxed look on my cowboy's face that I was hoping for, and you can almost see the steam coming off of his heels as he soaks them in the stream.  The two vacationing amphibians really adds charm and the overall design.  The frog floating in the inner tube is my favorite part of the whole scene.  I really wanted to get a cowboy hat into the piece, but it just didn't fit in without covering up more important details.  So, I gave up the idea and really don't feel the lack.

As promised, let me describe my struggles with developing the water.  My original goal was to make the water clear so that the bottom of the stream could be seen as well as the moss hanging off of the bottom of the log that the cowboy is sitting on.  I explored several options from epoxy to railroad modeling stuff.  I finally decided to try a product from Woodland Scenics called E-Z Water.  It's a plastic material that comes in small pellets.  I heated up a batch on the stove and pored it into the channel.  Right away, I could see that it was going to be a cloudy amber color.  Oh well, it was too late to change my mind.  So, I forged forward, building up the water in several layers.  Once I reached the depth that I was looking for, I used an old paint brush to texture the surface.

Once I was satisfied, I let the thing dry for a few hours and assessed the situation.  The top surface was really not to my liking.  It was too rough and really didn't have the look that I wanted.  There were a few places where the top layer was pealing off, so I took a piece of dowel cut off at a bevel and scraped at the surface of the E-Z Water.  It chipped off very easily, and what I found underneath was a nice, flowing texture.  Eureka!  That's what I was looking for.

Now that my idea of a clear stream was shattered, I was forced to resort to painting the water's surface.  I painted the entire surface with a True Blue color for an undercoat.  I followed up with a second layer of Turquoise on the higher points, leaving the lower sections the darker blue.  I finished up by dry brushing the tops of the waves with white to accent the white caps that my frog is enjoying.  All in all, I'm quite pleased with the results.  Even with the paint, the water is still somewhat translucent and provides a nice effect.

I'm not sure that I would recommend the E-Z Water yet.  I'll probably try another project with it before I make up my mind.

I learned many lessons along this journey.  Some for the good, some things to improve on.  That's exactly what carving is all about.  One should learn from each piece carved and apply the new knowledge to the next.  I hope you have enjoyed this series and learned something for yourself along the way.  Thanks for tagging along.

There are a lot more photos in the Picture Gallery, and the piece is available for purchase.  If you are interested, just drop me an email.

It's a Boy!!!

The newest addition to my family has just arrived.  An 8 lb. 2 oz. baby boy!!!  I'm sorry that I haven't posted for a while.  I've been so busy helping my sweet wife get ready for the baby that I haven't had time to keep up with the Blog.  I've been fixing things around the house, finishing off a room in my basement to move my two oldest girls into to make room for the new arrival, and a million other things.  I just want to thank you all for sticking with me.

I'm down to three knives in the gallery and have orders for nine more that I need to fill this weekend, but after I get these orders filled, I'll make a large batch of them so the Knife Gallery doesn't look so empty.  If you have a special request, now would be the time to send in the custom order.

I have the finish drying on my Cooling His Heels project, and I'll get some finished pictures of it posted this weekend.  I think it turned out better than I had imagined.  I'll give a full description of how I finished the final details, including the water in my next post.

Anyway, thank you all for sticking around.  I hope to award your patients in the near future.

Cooling His Heels Progress

It has been some time since I've made any progress on my Cooling His Heels scene.  With the birth of the Caterpillar knife, I've been extremely busy filling knife orders and haven't had much time to carve.  I did, however, find the time to give my cowboy some company. 

This little frog addition turned out even better than I had imagined.  He looks awfully comfortable lounging there on that sandy beach, an ice-cold tropical drink in his hand.  He will get a companion soon so help round out the composition.  I have a pair of boots carved, but not painted, that will be laying on the ground next to my cowpoke.  I think I'll finish up the scene with a cowboy hat and possibly a canteen to finish things up.  I hope you like it, and I would love to hear what you have to say about my little project.