September "What's on your workbench?"

John Lawrence

John Lawrence

Active member
Welcome to September! September always means the start of Fall to me, even though it's going to be 92 here in Pittsburgh today. The evenings are cooling off nicely and a few leaves are beginning to turn around here. So the promise of Autumn is there.

First I have a sleeping Mallard drake to show this month. Last summer I took an order from a new customer for a sleeping black duck. I started the decoy and then the guy backed out on the order a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately that happens sometimes in the custom decoy business. So I decided to finish it for my own use. I added exposed wings on both sides and worked on it whenever I had a little extra time. Somewhere around the middle of last summer I saw some advanced photos from Keith's book and there was a picture of a sleeping hen black duck in almost the exact same pose except my decoy's head was on the other side. Now the issue of copying some one's work is one that I'm very sensitive too. It goes on much too often in the decoy world and with the internet it's fairly easy to track who does it regularly, and it's something that will eventually damage your reputation. So accordingly I lost all interest in that decoy for about six months.

Around Christmas I found it again sitting on one of my work tables and I though I heard him whisper to me " I'm really a mallard". One day when I had a little bit of time I heard him a little louder saying he wanted to be a mallard so I picked up a knife and started to reshape the head and neck. I see a mallard's head from the side as squarer that a black duck's so I changed the profile and the slope of the neck to change mine away from what Keith's looked like. Westlake started to get close so I put it down again for awhile.

In March at the Westlake show I told the story of this still unfinished decoy to Keith and told me told finish it as a black duck it would be okay with him. But still it just was too close to his and it just didn't set right with me.

Around the beginning of June I happened to find it again near the top of some unfinished decoys and I just wasn't sure if it said Mallard to me so I thought about finishing it as a mallard hen for about a week. But every time I went to the basement he kept telling me that "I'm a mallard, a mallard drake by the way". But since I had originally started this decoy as a black duck I hadn't left enough room for tail curls. But one of my favorite antique decoys that I look at on the web regularly is an early Charlie Joiner drake mallard that doesn't have tail curls either. Once again the decoy talked to me one day but this time he said rather pointedly " I want to be a mallard drake" an then I heard him say " You are the No Rules guy right? Make me the way you want to" So that was it he became a sleeping mallard drake without tail curls.

I started showing you all the painting process last month but working with that cell phone camera just didn't cut it. And after the second glaze on the head the time came to ride hard and fast because I was seeing the colors and I was able to figure out how to make them. So I finished the head painting without any additional photos. One thing I tried on this decoy that was different was to paint everything in front of the rump area without using any black paint. You know after you've made 700 or 800 decoys you have to start looking for ways to keep thing fresh and interesting. Most of the blacks that you see were made from mixes of blues, browns and purples except for the head where I used Thalo Green and Alizarin Crimson. Once again this decoy is hollowed cedar and painted in oils.

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Here is another decoy that I'm making for a customer. This fellow had some pretty specific ideas that he wanted in his decoy but I wanted to go a little further. I always want to give people who buy my decoys more than they expected. So after a few email exchages he gave me the freedom to add some other features. I added an open bill and exposed both wings. I also used some new Tohickon stippled yellow eyes that give hima little bit of a crazed angry look. This is a slightly over sized drake greater bluebill, hollowed cedar, he's getting a keel of purple heart and will be paineted in oils.
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And I'm not done yet.
 
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About two weeks ago Paul Rugters gave me a call one the phone on evening. One of the things that he asked me was if I ever made anything for myself. I told him very rarely because I just don't have a lot of time. But I was working on a rig of wood ducks that will eventually be three drakes and three hens for my own use. I was "in process" with the three hens but hadn't worked on them for a while. Paul's question gave me the motivation to finish them and move them along to paint. So over the last two weeks thats just what I have done.

My original idea was to make a rig of "pocket" or "petite" wood duck decoys so that if I needed to quickly switch spots when hunting I could grab a few, shove them in the pockets of my hunting coat and move. Accordingly I drew this pattern at about 90-95% of what most hen wood ducks are made too, about 10 3/4" jong and 5" wide. The heads are basswood and the bodies are white cedar and they are extremely light, just a few ounces each. I'm going to paint them this falll so they most likely won't get to go hunting untill next year. But I'll be able to add the drakes by then. I've found my focus again boys and I'm back in the groove.

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That's some of the things I've been working on what's on your workbench this month?
 
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Looks like a full bench. Like the paint commentary on the blacks. I use it for carving, but never in flat art. I dont wonder that you are putting too much thought into the copying. I'd never confuse your dekes with Keiths even if the pose was the same down to the micro angle. You dont paint, carve or design the same. Your dekes are quite original A sleeper duck can only look so many ways.
 
awesome stuff, Mr. John!

one of these days i'm gonna figure that whole "soft feather" look you guys get......mine just look like a hard line (well, a crooked, hard line), and my blending just sucks.

love looking at birds from folks that can get it done!

-justin
 
I just finished this funky little hen Wood Duck.

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Man that is awsome stuff. I've got something I'll post up that was on my "workbench" and I technically finished it on the last day of August, but I kind of got a little busy and seperated from the internet so I'll post it on September's. It's not much, but it has a cool story behind it.

Mike
 
tom,

love the attitude of that woodduck. Is that your own pattern.

Geoff, do you find that the necks are weak in that style of bird. From the photos it certainly looks thin in the area below the jaw.
 
Kris...there is a dowel that travels from the red cedar through the white cedar into the lower portion of the basswood head and into the upper portion. The dowel just misses the crease at the underside of the jaw. It is as far forward as possible. So I think it is stronger than it appears. My experience is that basswood is better for this type of crease than cedar, meaning less likely to crack. If the neck cracks, I bet it would be at the cedar portion of the neck, just below the basswood cedar joint. I didn't throw it on the floor of the shop though, so I don't know for sure...
 
6 on the painting table (aka kitchen table), although 1 needs sealed and based yet. 2 sprig, 3 widgeon, 1 gw. No barn burners, just some to throw in the water this fall, these were carved up last winter - just now keeled and sealed.







Tim
 
Not Decoy related, but I still think this was pretty cool.

I just got back from a mission to a firebase in the northeastern part of our province. We went up to assist the Special Forces’ Operational Detachment (Alpha) with some horses that they’ve inherited for conducting mounted patrols in the rugged mountain terrain. This team just arrived in country and has very little experience in working with these animals. Needless to say, the previous team really didn’t have a lot of experience either. The local Afghan caretaker that was hired applies the same level of care that all Afghans take of their livestock. Poor food, too little water, lack of exercise and they were kept confined and tied in their stalls 24/7. In essence the perfect storm for foot problems in a horse. Our Vet was also asked to advise the ODA on proper nutrition, care and basic horsemanship.
Our vet knew I had wood working tools and asked if I could produce a “training aid” to help show what “right looks like” on a well maintained horses hoof. Having tools is one thing, but finding suitable wood was a challenge. In the scrap pile, I found a fairly clean and straight grained 4x4 timber that had potential.
Using my book by Pete Ramey on natural hoof care, my own experience in trimming feet and my Vet’s anatomical expertise, this is what I came up with. (The red marker is what we used to highlight the “white line” that is the area between the hoof wall and the sole callus).
Because I’ve worked with my horses using Pat Parelli’s natural horsemanship methods, I also went along to teach handling and training techniques. By the time we were finished with the training, the team had a lot of enthusiasm and knowledge of how to work and care for these animals. The horses are by no means perfectly sound, and the ODA are by no means experts yet, but as the SF guys are so famous for proving, they will soon become experts in these tasks too.
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Here's a project I've had in the works for a few days now. The legs are 6' long and are 2x3 pine.

I'm thinking of making a few pintail or widgeon silhouettes that will connect to the blank sections on the legs and the hing when deployed.

They need the black parts and a little dash of pale yellow and they're ready for the water.

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-D
 
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