Wednesday Wings: Haven’t you grown?!!!

It’s been a while since I posted an update on our adorable Nile geese.

The first pics are from two weeks ago.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

They have almost their parents’ colouring and size, only the heads are still darker. Sadly, 7 gosducklings turned into 4, but nature is a cruel place where often adorable baby birds turn into a fox’s next meal.

On Monday we met again, and one of them was just as interested in me, as I was in it.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

There was no aggression in its behaviour, just pure curiosity in that strange creature with a box for a face.

Mushroom Hunt Pictures: Jay Feather

In Czech folklore, Jays are the guardians of the forest due to their habit to make an awful lot of noise when they spot humans. They also used to be game birds and considered to be a pest, but they are protected by law now all year round. So when a gamekeeper wants to adorn his hat with a jay feather, as per custom, nowadays he has to find the feather in the forest and cannot just kill the bird for them.

They are beautiful but tiny and rare to find. This one is less than 5 cm long.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The Art of Aubrey Beardsly: Le Morte Darthur

Most of the artwork for Le Morte Darthur is set outdoors, and Beardsley places his characters into stylized high-contrast landscapes filled with heavy repetitive curving lines and shapes. The artist uses a leaf motif plus a multiplicity of trees as repetitive elements that create a strong sense of place and link the illustrations into a cohesive set.

 

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

 

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

Artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. Le Morte Darthur.

 

 

 

Resin Art: The Jewellery Board

Or: I blame Charly. I wanted to make a jewellery board for a while and had already bought a white mdf board when Charly posted the video about making Ocean Waves Boards. It also coincided with our cleaning up the cellar so I finally had some space where I could work on something a bit larger and leave it for curing. Of course, me being impatient meant I fucked up several ways and had to spend more time fixing my mistakes. Will I ever learn?

First step: Pouring the ocean

©Giliell, all rights reserved

First of all I forgot to tape the sides and underside, meaning I had to scrape off resin for about an hour once I was done. Second mistake: I should have sanded the surface to create a rougher surface so the resin would stick better. You can see a part in the top left corner where it refused to go at all. And last but not least, I greatly underestimated the amount of resin it takes. I ended up doing a couple more pours, both to extend the “sea” area as well as adding a “beach” because I didn’t like the white. I also painted the cleaned off sides. During that time I also created the knobs that would be added to the finished board and also the parts meant to become a little shelf for earrings.

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Project Badgermascus – Part 10 – Leather, Stomping, Dying…

Well, I did not stomp out of the room in rage nor did I die of exasperation, but I must say the leather stamping did not go as well as I would wish. Despite making three mock-up sheaths from crappy leather upfront and practicing on several more leather off-cuts, I have messed-up the basket-weave stamping bigly. I do not know why. Maybe the stamp is crap, maybe it is the slight deformations of the leather that happen during work due to the stamps, but the end result is a bit chewed-up in places because I did not position the stamp correctly and I had to redo that spot several times. I have resigned that I cannot do better and decided to not give it another go.

So unless I mess up at some following step and have to start all over again, this is the final design.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The wooden mallet did help a lot, allowing me much better control of the strength with which I hit, so that at least worked out well. The burnisher worked like a charm on edges too.

Carving the badger paw-print was a bit of a challenge, but I think I got it acceptably on this final piece. Working with a swivel knife is interesting and it takes some getting-used-to, especially on tight curves, but it did seem fairly intuitive to me (mind you, I only did these simple designs). The home-made beveler for the fingerprints worked well too, I have no complaints there.

I have colored the mock-ups with three different color schemes and what you see here on the final piece is what my mother has assessed as the best combination. In case it went south, I had a secret backup plan, called “Operation: Full Black”. But the dyeing did not go south so far, I made no blotches in the light patches, there are no streaks or shadows when it is all dry and no bleeding over the borderlines either. The claw prints are not ideal, but I can live with that.

Tomorrow is gluing, stitching and wet-forming time. This is only a second sheath of this construction that I make – and first with a belt-clip – so there are no guarantees as to the result.

Edit: Publishing this did not go well. Butterfingers.

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Ant Venturer

Deep into the woods, an ant did venture.

Over the mossy hills, seeking adventure.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Edit: I bloody well wish that when I click “delete permanently” in order to re-upload badly cropped picture WordPress really deleted it. As it is, it does not allow me to re-upload a picture unless I also rename it – otherwise, it just un-deletes the wrong version over and over again. The button “delete permanently” is thus without real function. AAARGH.

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Larch Cones

Larches do not throw off just the cones, but whole twigs. So during a dry spell, the forest floor under larches is just like a huge tinderbox just waiting to burst into flames. That may be one reason why larches also have very thick bark that is capable of resisting flames for quite a long time, similarly to the bark of for example sequoias or cork oaks.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.