pdrake new stuff check it!! 7/19

Deeamn!How did I miss that lure? Very nice Perry! That barb looks great on its own, kinda fish-like.. Love the combination of materials & your binding looks fine.

Ka pai!

Tama :)

thank you very much andy. i've got a few more of them on the bench. they're fun to make and i like the different woods i'm using. (working on one that's green and one that's black.)

oh, and "moko moko moko". taiaha is kicking my butt.

more junk . . .

Hi Perry, wow! I like the last jade piece.... very cool!

Amy

Perry, that's some cool junk! :) I really like this guy. The shape is great, and I'm looking forward to seeing more updates on it!

Zaya

thanks amy and zaya. it's still pretty rough. lots of sanding to go and carving and sanding.

here's a little update.

i'm not posting this to get strokes, just so's people know. i really appreciate the encouragement and it helps keep me going, but any criticizm is welcome and expected. i got some great advice today from paipo and it's really wonderful to have the other carvers see stuff and listen to their input and wisdom.

so, anyway . . .

sometimes i feel that these are all practice pieces as i can see stuff that i've done wrong and how i should do it better next time.

maybe i just shouldn't look so close.

[ Edited by: pdrake 2007-07-19 20:17 ]

Maybe you should get magnifiers so you can see better, maybe they would help in giving you better rough out quality which would make clean-up easier. Perry, you have SO Much talent, Anything you can do to ease the burden of hand sanding will make your stuff that much better.

HAHAHA! that's funny. i have magnifiers. i guess i need to get better ones. (or get my eyes checked.) thanks, ben. hehehe. i really appreciate your input whenever you have time to give it.

i don't know how you do it. i want to remake every piece i do because of the mistakes i make. i guess that why it takes people years to get good at this stone stuff. i wouldn't even show it if i didn't want feedback from masters like you. maybe i just have too much of a rush feeling because i want the piece to come out of the stone the way i see it in my head. i know that patience is a very important part of carving. sometimes i carve too fast and too hard and i think that hurts the stone. especially with my current tools. i know the old saying, "a poor craftsman blames his tools", but i also have seen what a difference good tools can make. i've been having trouble since i broke my good flex shaft. i think i'm about ready to invest in a high quality, water fed micro motor with air feed. my compressor is just sitting around feeling unused.

this forum really keeps me going. thanks everyone.

Hey Perry, I really like the look and the shape of it, I don't know what it is but I would like to see it when it's all done. Hope when I come down to the next chop you'll bring it with. I also wanted to ask if you could bring that grinding unit again next time so I might give it a whirl (with some guidence if you could). I have a few small stones I wanted to shape if you wouldn't mind. Thanks bro.

you bet. it's pretty easy to pack and go.

here's some pics of the lure i'm working on, too. the wood is lignum vitae. it will soon be very popular as it's the "wand wood" in the new harry potter movie. it's a very, very oily wood that smells like sandalwood when you carve it. these pictures make it look brownish/tan, but when it oxidizes (is exposed to oxygen/air) it turns green. a nice pretty green, too. it's soo cool to work with except for the smell (it can be overpowering). it's very, very dense and has a great grain.

i've had a hard time making the paua match up to wood. i can't imagine how the natives did it with primitive tools. it's so difficult to get the curves right. after i get one of these done i look at it and wonder how that happend. the shells have the most complex, compound curves and you have to match those up to the wood. sometimes there are very thin parts in the shells and you have to make the wood work with it and you cant work with the shell. she just says, "hey, this is it. deal with it."

the contrast is just the most amazing thing to see, though. hope you like it. (yes, please stroke me.)

Like it PD?

OMG - that is just STUNNING.

I love your stuff. You suffer from that artist's affliction - perfectionism. I have learnt to accept that the ancients have their own idea how it should look, and mine is not always the same. Also, nothing in real life is perfect, so why should our art be?

Your stuff is good - keep it up, cause I love looking at it!

KS

Perry, that IS a Beautiful Combination and very well done. I use the 4 grit combo foam stick from Walgreens(made to buff and polish fingernails)to sand and polish the shell. Goes fron saw cuts to mirror finish in minutes and it takes the saw lines out of wood too. You have really been giving us some fantastic stuff, but like you said and I'm sure you've heard me say a thousand times: "Its ALL Practice for the next piece" so keep on practicing, I still am!

Interesting stuff this wood. Nice crafting the Perry!

Mahalo

McTiki

On 2007-07-19 22:44, T_birdman wrote:
Hey Perry, I really like the look and the shape of it, I don't know what it is but I would like to see it when it's all done.

*I reckon I know.. Looks like a stylised lip/chin-moko design to me!..?

Glad to see you persevering with the green stuff. I admire the fact that you are virtually teaching yourself and achieving some success. Back in my bone carving days people would often ask 'do you carve jade?' and my only responce was 'no idea; it's another world away, different tools, etc' - and this was living in a country with a firmly established jade industry. It can be a very mysterious and intimidating craft to the uninitiated. You would do well to sort yourself a better handpiece if the one you are using isnt up to scratch. Try not to be too hard on yourself for these early efforts; I can see by your other work that you have the necessary skills/precision, etc; its really just a matter of finding some half decent stone and practice, practice, practice, (experiment), practice. It takes time to really understand any material & you've picked one of the most difficult! Believe me, I look back at pieces after only a few weeks or months and often feel a bit embarrassed. Our skills keep on improving and I guess this is just a part of the journey - Think about it: if your skills are constantly improving, you will keep producing better & better work, and therefore; you will ALWAYS look back and find yourself cringing a little.

My suggestion to you (if you want to get really good or make a bit of pocket-money) would be to 'specialise' in something; say, these new composite lures, and really thrash ideas/techniques etc around until you NAIL those tricky suckers. If you say that getting the wood and shell to laminate nicely (and I believe you) is tricky, then become the best at it - any potential competition will fall behind and you will be able to offer the best examples available. Invention is good; if you can invent something (a technique, style, whatever..) then it is all yours and only available from you. If competition arises or sales slow, invent something else. Invention and creativity. Creativity in marketing is just the same as creativity in making. -I go on about sales as I know the confidence (as an artist) that comes from the 'verification' that comes from selling a work (the money is nice too!).

Sorry about the ramble; not sure where it came from. Hope there's something of value here for you.haha

Tama :)

Hi PDrake....I love that shape. Sometimes I think the jade has to speak for itself...this form lets it do that.

I think your lure could be wearable art as well...really like the combination of wood and paua. Paua is like a handful of rainbows eh?
Good luck with it...very nice pieces.

Hello PD - we have'nt heard from you lately. You been doing any carving?

KS

hey brah...

You likem the kahawai eh? Its nice to see you work so passionately. And yes, matching the shell overlay to wood is a bear. But after some practice it gets so much easier! Ive made 30 or 40 kahawai lures and it does get easier...

Abalone does have some strange shapes sometimes but after a while youll know exactly where on the shell makes the best overlay, which makes it less of "trial & error" kine guessing game...

keep it up brah. make a moke like me proud...

not really working right now.

Hey Perry, WHERE ARE YOU? Missing seeing your Stuff!

thanks, ben. i'm in the process of cleaning my work area and getting things organized. i've let things get a little disarrayed. as soon as that's done i'll be back on the horse.

AW' Rite! Can't wait!

well, i'm back on the horse. the only thing i have to show so far is that i totally forgot all about the "spinning bone of death".

Looks like you were reminded pretty quickly,,OOOUCH!

well, now i'm carving again. i plan on having a bunch of stuff for the tiki caliente show. i'm also teaming with one of the most talented carvers on the board to offer a limited edition, resin pendant at the event.

mahalo!

Nice what is it made off Bone & stone?

That paua/wood combo looks very nice Perry. Great to see you back posting again! Looking forward to seeing the binding you mentioned...don't leave us hanging this time!

[ Edited by: Paipo 2008-03-27 17:16 ]

Welcome back P-Drake the piece looks Great and the Fingers look, well, they look abused? The Spinning bone syndrome, it's best to watch those with your fingers a safe distance away but Unfortunately that Never Happens as you are living Proof. :lol: :lol: :lol:
What else you have going??

thanks a lot. the wood is linguam. it's also known as the tree of life. i've used it before, but have had a hard time with it. it's very oily. it used to be used as bearings on ships. it smells like perfume/sandal wood.

the hook is ivory. i don't know why i torture myself with such small things. it will be done soon.

Ah Yes Lignum Vitae, Extremely Dense, heavy, Oily and Hard. The battle ships had a machine shop where they machined blocks about 36" by 18"by 18" and these were bolted around the ships shaft length ways and they made Excellent bearings. I know a Gentleman whose job in WW2 was working that machine shop onboard a US Battleship, Creating those blocks. He owned the landscape Nursery where I had my carving shop for several years. You don't carve Lignum, you machine it AND it is Pretty wood.