Owl in Progress

[stave]

Started this as a study for a larger piece but it came out better than I thought so I went the whole nine yards. The wood is Balsa measuring 6" tall x 2 1/2" square. I bleached with a 2 part bleach (the store doesn't carry any longer) and I will finish sanding with a nylon rag to buff it down. Probably use shellac and wax as a final finish.

Any and all comments welcome.
Stave

 

[Sealeveler]

Your owl turned out great,like the eye detail.
Tony

 

[ptt49er]

Beautiful!

 

[PeteM]

Very nice :thumbs_up

Is it your design?

p

 

[cskipper]

That's stunning!

 

[CarvedTones]

Very nice! That's a testament to the sharpness of your tools to get balsa to cut that cleanly.

 

[JackLeg]

That's art! :wsmile:

 

[stave]

Yes the design is mine although I have seen similar work...just so many poses in a vertical format you can work with. I tried to avoid a static vertical posture and create some movement through the wings and tipping him forward a little. I also tried to blend a little realism in with the geometry to avoid being to cold.

I admit the tools were major sharp. I have been carving a large panel in polar using flat chisels and I hit the edges about every hour or so. You don't want to bump them with hand that's for sure but man are they nice to work with. Cut that balsa like butter, that carving was done to this state in less than 5 hours.

Glad you guys like, always make me feel like my efforts are worth it when someone appreciates the work.

STAVE

 

[CarvedTones]

One thing I am curious about - how did you secure it to carve? Glue in a dowel of something harder? Besides being difficult to cut cleanly due to being so soft, I haven't figured out a good way to secure balsa without marring it.

That bleaching almost makes it look like alabaster. You could scare the you-know-what out of someone by picking it up and throwing it at them (not that I would suggest it with a carving that nice).

 

[stave]

Hate to be so honest here but I broke all the rules.
I actually just laid it against my bench to start with and it did dent it. Once I got along to a certain point I just held it in my hand and pulled the tool towards me using the edge of the chisel. I used a homemade chisel 3/4" with a very long bevel (don't know the angle but most likely around 15 degrees) and an a xacto knife with a 2" blade for cleanup. For the texture I used a white ball burr around the face. Overall time about 5 hours.

I am doing a 4' x 8' panel of an aerial perspective of a city and I have been doing windows..over 900 and each one requires 4 steps...I needed a sanity break. I'll post a picture of that.

Stave