Relief Carving the Flying Canada Goose Tutorial

[Irish]

Step 53: cont.

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To add a few bright white tips to the edges of the wing feathers pick up a small amount of un-thinned white on your brush tip. Work the tip several times over your palette to remove any excess color. Now drag the brush over the edges of the wings. This dry brushing will color only the highest parts of the wing tips.

Using Payne's grey dry brush the feather tips of the longest flight feathers. Note in the front wing in photo LSIrish-171-1336.jpg that these feathers show both the white and the black dry brushed coloring.

Add dry brushed white to the shoulder feather tips and the back feathers. Touch the tail feathers with Payne's grey.

[Irish]

Step 54: Highlighting the cattails and let dry overnight.

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Add a little white dry brushing to the cattail leaves.

Trim the routed edges of the plaque using medium yellow for the inner ring and hooker green for the outer ring.

Since I have used a lot of water to thin the colors I allowed my plaque to dry for two hours before I added two light coats of polyurethane or acrylic spray sealer to the entire plaque. Now let the spray sealer set overnight.

At this point your carving should be very colorful and each area of the carving should have a wide variety of colors and color tones. This is not a coloring book - fill in the lines - painting. It has lots and lots and lots of small random spots of changing color.

[Irish]

Step 55: Antiquing the carving.

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In a disposable pan mix two parts linseed oil with one part burnt umber oil paint. Add one part turpentine. You can see in LSIrish-175-1352.jpg that this is a very thin antiquing color.

Spot antique the carving area. Brush your antiquing mix onto an area about 4" square. Work the color down into the wood burning texture of the carving. With a clean, dry cotton cloth wipe the excess antiquing from the wood. With a clean, dry stiff (ox haired) brush work the antique color to an even thin coat in the background wood area. Work out any excessive puddles of color in the deep details of the carving.

Spot antique the project until the entire carving has been worked. By this stage your cloth should be well coated with the oil paint mix. You can use the cloth to spread a light, even coat of antiquing into the remaining background areas of the plaque. Use your dry brush to even this coating even more.

Antique along the routed edges of the plaque is the same manner.

Allow the antiquing to dry overnight and finish your project by signing the back with your name and date using a permanent fine tip marker. Lightly spray the work with two more coats of polyurethane sealer.

Its ready to display!

[Irish]

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Thank you to everyone that has joined me in this seminar. I so hope that you have learned something new in all of this, discovered the fun and joy of relief carving, or just enjoyed following this thread.

For me, it is just a privilege to be able to share my love of carving with you.

So, thanks!
Lora

[Claude]

Thanks for taking time to provide this tutorial for us, Lora!

Claude

[Irish]

Thank you!

[joepaulbutler]

"Thank you to everyone that has joined me in this seminar" As my mother used to say to me for saying something foolish "shut your mouth" It is us who thank you for your splendid presentation. Great tips

[Irish]

.... sheepish grin here ....

[Merle Rice]

Hi Susan, Good Job , Beautiful Piece nice Bright Colors. As I remember I finished mine with Colored Pencils . Hope you stay around and enjoy this Hobby with us again. Merle

[Irish]

Hey Good Sir!!!!

I must admit that since Mike, my beloved husband, passed away it has been a little difficult to get back into the swing of wood carving. Mike and I were so entangled with this great craft that picking up a bench knife - for a while - was a little heart breaking.

But I do believe that with the companionship that is here on the forum will/is getting me moving forward again.

[Merle Rice]

Hi Susan , I had talked to you and Mike a Couple of times way back when and you got me involved with WCI and became a Member , never Regretted a Moment and still Enjoy the Fellowship it brings . Now maybe to repay you for my years of Enjoyment a few Words from me can get and keep you Involved and start enjoying a Hobby that you like so much again . Oh ! you stated years ago that your Friends call you Susan , mine cal me Merle . Still over the Mountain in Smithsburg . Merle

[Glenn Jennings]

Fantastic job susan I think this will make brilliant refference material for me. many thanks for doing this for us. Very much appreciated.