Just A Little Off The Top!

The carving part of this piece was finished up today with the installation of the mirror.  Judy and I spent some time in the WalMart makeup section yesterday looking for a ladies compact that I could remove the mirror from to allow him to see his reflection.  I think it's pretty clear that the barber must have been hard of hearing or, like all barbers when presented with a healthy head of hair, kind of went wild with the clippers.  It will be fun painting this poor soul and also adding the hair clippings on the cape around his shoulders.  It should be a pretty neat piece once completed.

Lots of photos in the Gallery and I'll look forward to your comments as I always do.

Old Reliable - It's Care And Feeding

Old Reliable from Out West Woodcarving Videos on Vimeo.

As I am always getting questions about this tool I thought I would do a little video on just how I go about getting it ready to do it's wonders.  Hopefully, this will answer all your questions should you have any.

Fence Work -Finished!

I finished this one up this morning with the help of Judy who was kind enough to construct the barbed wire while I put the final touches to the overall scene.  This is a fairly large piece, measuring just about 22 inches including the base.  I got the idea for it from a painting by Bruce Greene.  Of course, while borrowing the paintings pose, I added my own embellishments and changes to make it unique from the other.

I was a little hesitant to add actual barbed wire to the piece for fear that someone would poke themselves, however it just wouldn't have looked correct with smooth wire.  Barb-less wire is used on horse ranches as horses don't lean on the fence like cattle and if you've ever seen the damage barbed wire can do to a horse should they run or get tangled into it you can understand it's use. But in this case I stuck with the barbed version.

The Del Monte sliced peaches emblem is painted directly on the can and it's filled with staples. The fence post is from an old post I found on our property.  I weathered it a little more than it originally was.

All in all I'm quite pleased with the way this one turned out.  The Cowboy certainly appears comfortable with his work although I'm sure he'd much rather be setting in the saddle, out herding cattle.  People ask why I always put a smoke in the mouth of my figures.  Well, back then just about all of them lit up when they had the chance.  The tag of his makins pouch is hanging from his waistcoat pocket.

There are quite a few photos in the Gallery and I look forward to your comments.