Andrew Boyce

Artist & Craftsman

Decoy Duck - Project in progress...

Painted wooden decoy duck project.

 This is my first attempt at a decorative decoy duck. I have chosen a female mallard and it is to be as near life size as possible. This is an ongoing project which, as I will be doing it in my spare time, will take about eight weeks from start to finish. The wood I am using is European Lime, (Basswood in the USA). She will be painted with acrylic paints. Please find below a sequence of images taken at various stages of development. The first photo shows the glued blocks of wood ready for mounting on the vice.

The basic body shape is roughed out using a deep gouge and a heavy mallet.

Next, the basic head shape is cut out with a bandsaw, and center guidelines drawn in place on the head and bill.

The basic shape is now rounded to give me an idea of form. I have refined some of the features on the head before the neck becomes too thin. Also it helps me get a better idea of how it might look when finished.

Although the eyes will be made of glass and added when the carving stage is finished, I roughly carved them in to help get the balance of the head details right

The wings as a whole and the main feather groups are carved in, again using hand chisels.

Now individual feathers are cut in using a sharp hobby knife.

The carving stage is nearly finished now. Having said that there is a lot of refining left to do, the rounding, thinning and undercutting of all of the feathers. After that comes the working of all of the individual lines on each feather. As I have not done a decorative decoy duck before, I need to go out and get some pyrography tools pretty quick!

One borrowed pyrography tool later....

German made museum quality brown glass eyes next.....

Painting next... The photograph below shows the painting at an advanced stage, but NOT FINISHED! There will be alterations to overall colour, fineness of detail and sheen.

Please visit my flickr page for more detailed pictures, and more images of detailed stages.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftsman/sets/72157605107492608/

Please check back often for updates....

Shes not finished yet....!