Carving some shore birds

I have not carved any birds for a long time. Painting them on cold rainy days was just the thing to be reminded of the beach and the usual sunshine.

Thanksgiving is done with.

Had a wonderful Thanksgiving day dinner at the Carolina Inn here in Chapel Hill. We're recovering from over-eating. Bright sunny day today. Another batch of Santa-cicles have been carved and painted.

Beechmast Pond yields a Five-pound Bass

The black Jitterbug scores again. It was close to 8:00 PM and about 8 feet from the bank. a five and a half pound bass attacked the Jitterbug after 2 foot retrieve.(7th June)

It's going to be extra warm for a few days

The weather is going to be in the high 80's for net few days. A good time to tie some woolly-buggers. May just bring the necessary materials into a cool place. I usually set up the tying vise in my garage, but when its too hot or too cold out there I move it all into the house.

Fishing Stone Mountain and the Mitchell River,

Tuesday,6th of May and my friend and I are fishing the Roaring River in Stone Mountain. On the drive up I kept thinking I forgot something. I did, I forgot my wading staff. We strung up at the Church Pool. We were catching trout by 12:20. This was a lot different from the last trip.Jerry was fishihg a Woolly-bugger, I was doing well with a Griffith's Gnat.At the days end we got a spaghetti dinner. and crashed. Wednesday, 7th of May we went to the Mitchell River in Mountain Park. We continued to catch fish pretty much at every pool we fished. At a bit after noon I slipped wading and fell forwards damn near breaking my pole. I got really soaked, my hip boots filled with water and I could hardly get out of the stream.The pole was saved,I remembered My friend Wendell Niemann saying when you fall like that.... "SAVE the POLE"! All in all, it was a good trip.

The First Trout Fishing Trip of 2014

My fishing friend, Jerry Noe and I finally got to go to Stone Mountain to fly fish for trout. The drive up started with gas in the car and sausage muffins and coffee in us. We strung up our rods at the big parking area. The water was clear and a little low. We couldn't spot any fish in the pools where we usually easily see them. Jerry went down stream and I went up stream. It was not a good start. I saw one trout swimming below the foot bridge. We both saw a nice fish leap clear of the water taunting us. It was a disappointing day. We had dinner and crashed after deciding to go to Helton Creek next morning. 24 April 14 , Thursday morning we started for Helton, had breakfast in Sparta, and drove Rt 221 to Route 16 and Helton Creek. We didn't catch a trout until late in the afternoon. Jerry caught two right close to the car.On the way home we stopped at Bogangles for our usual chicken dinner.

Spring is finally here

The Final Burst

This is the last bunch of Daffodils, the rest of them are nearly finished with their peak display. The weather has been like summer these last few days. The trees are beginning to show off their red buds and dogwoods are just getting going.With all this happening my thoughts are are stirring about trout fishing. Its been a long hard winter for much of the country, a trout could shake the cold memories right out of me. All it'll have to do is grab hold of the leader and start shaking.

Let's take a walk

A bamboo walking staff was split from end to end. The nodal partions were ground down and the interior prepared to allow a 3 sectioned telescopic crappie fishing pole to be fitted into the bamboo. A web wrist strap was attached and epoxied in place. The butt of the crappie rod had a screw cap to which a strip of metal with some foam was secured with plumber's epoxy, when the cap was unscrewed and the strip withdrawn several flies were made available for use.

Christmas is approaching

     
    Christmas is nearing. I haven't been doing much in the way of carving until just recently. I carved about two dozen Santa-cicles to add to the Christmas tree. This usually gets my enthusiasm to up to where I'll start work at it. I had great difficulty getting into this blog so I could begin posting again.

Indian Brave and an Indian Maiden

The Mandan Indian Maiden now has a  boyfriend. I always wanted to carve a Cigar Store Indian. What I came up with is a little more refined then the usual product. I was able to glean a lot of genuine information about the American Indian at about thirty years after Lewis and Clark visited them from the letters of the artist George Catlin. He painted them in the finest apparel. This figure is a composite of some of that information. Another source for authentic regalia was the works of Ben Hunt a lover of and collector of things Indian.

The Bull has been copper leafed and given a greenish patina. The overall size is 33" x 20".
The horns are sections of deer antlers trimmed and fixed with an epoxy putty.

Spencer( XXXX)

Halloween is here again

The ghouls and the trolls have returned to terrorize the Millcroft neighborhood. They have moved from the back yard, where they spend most of year, to the front yard.

A Walk Around the Yard

This video was taken to show the various outdoor sculptures in our yard.

Viewing some of my works.

My interest in sculpting began with a boy scout knife, a piece of cherry wood and some inspiration provided by seeing carvings in a shop in the old section of Quebec City, Canada. My first carving was of a horse, of course the legs were fragile and were easily broken during the carving process. Years later I had the opportunity to attend a few meetings of a carving club in Saddle Brook N.J. There I was introduced to wood carving, the membership was varied in their interests. Some were into relief carving, others were carving "in the round". Here I got exposed to many different techniques. My first carvings with this group were of Gnomes and Santa-like figures. I found a place on the Ramapo River where beavers were actively felling Aspen trees and doing what beavers do. I was fascinated by their tooth marks on the wood. I brought home a few of the stumps they left and carved an old man's face in the sides of these stumps. As time passed I began to carve shore birds and fish. The source of Aspen wood stumps was lost when we moved to NC. Here I found cedar fence posts to carve my "Wood Spirits". Along with the Wood Spirits I've been sculpting female figures in cedar and refining some of these pieces to be "Ladies in Red". Much of the work is done in my garage which serves as my studio. My interests have extended to works in clay, plaster and bronze. Many outdoor pieces are on display in our yard here at 867 Millcroft. You may even be interested in going to YouTube and then to "zen867" and watching the video labeled "A Walk Around the Yard". If you wish to call 919.542.3429, we may be able to arrange for a short studio tour.

Botanical Garden Show Nearly Over

The Botanical garden show is nearly over. The Wood Spirit I entered is going to a new home. The Indian Maiden is coming back home to 867 Millcroft.

Ready for the Botanical Garden Sculpture Show

This Wood Spirit and Indian Maiden will be entered in the 2010 Botanical Garden Sculpture Show. Both pieces were completed this past week and just need to have their paperwork and entry fee filed.

Indian Maiden II

25 May 10

I just got a wonderful piece of cedar in the form of a 7 foot straight and clean log. Today I'll square off the bottom so it'll stand on it's own.
I wanted to mention I have some videos on uTube under the account listed as zen867 . The Troll Carving and A Walk Around the Yard are there to view if you wish.

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Adjusting the video size

I found that I could adjust the size of the video from utube by going into the embedding and changing the height and width numbers. It had been too wide and was shifted off center.

Carving A Troll

A New Troll Arrives for the Spring

At last the weather has become carve-able, and the first piece just had to be a Troll. Getting started after a long cold winter, where the garage studio was not a pleasant place to spend long hours in. Carving a Troll was a good way to start since I have a lot of flexibility, errors become "character"and Trolls are not supposed to be handsome. So he joins some of the crew that will participate in the next Halloween display. His blue coveralls set him apart from the rest of the group.

It's February

It's been cold these days and the work has suffered. I am just finishing a Merganser Duck. It's carved from pine,under-painted with aniline dyes and acrylic paints. The next step is to copper leaf it.

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