Things are warming up a bit, some of the snow is melting and I can smell spring which is good because I'm tired of running the snow blower. Here's a few knives that have turned out interesting, especially the bottom two. Second from the bottom is a Brusletto blade (Norway) with cariboo ends and some kind of wood in the middle. Extremely light weight and great for camping chores. Bottom one is a Finnish Leuku blade used by the Sami of that country. It's really nice with handcut leather spacers and a stag pommel. Lots of Devcon epoxy (the 2 ton 30 minute kind). One at the top is a nice fighter and one below has a beautiful ironwood handle. See what I mean about knives as works of art?

Moose Painting Finished

This I like although in the early stages I was fairly convinced it wasn't going to turn out well. I should have learned by now that if I stay with a painting long enough it might have possibilities. For this one I used a photograph from an Alaska wildlife reference book and some ideas I got from a Rungius painting for the foreground and background. The sky is inspired by such treatments given by Kuhn in his paintings. These are two of my "teachers" even though both are gone.

New Moose Painting

I guess I just like moose and bears so thought I'd show you the initial stage of this painting. It's an 18x24 and although I start different ways I'm beginning to learn that after a good drawing I like to put in the medium lights and darks to get some idea of the animals anatomy reflected in light. The question of background is always there at this point but I think it has to fit where the animal lives so I'm working on that idea. Will try to keep up on the blog with progressions.

Elk Painting

Thought I'd better get a few things on here before the next storm hits tonight and I'm back to work on the snow blower (Peg says 15 feet so far this winter). This is a 12x16 painting of an elk. It turned out pretty well and I can't tell if the photo or my eyes are a bit bleary. Basically I just made up the background which is not that difficult as long as you keep in mind it should be a color that nicely contrasts with the sienna in the animal.