A pintail hen with a twist

Here's a pintail hen I did in September for trading competition held at the Columbia Flyway show in Vancouver, WA. In this contest, all the birds are thown into the pool, tested for self righting, and then judged for first second and third as normal. However, after the contest, the winner gets their selection of birds to keep, then second place gets their choice, and so on. I came in 4th place out of 12 or so entries. But this particular contest is about creativity and having some fun.  

It was my first hen pintail, and I was pretty pleased with how it came out. As for the twist, it's a miniature. Also my first (non-caricature) miniature decoy.  I've included a quarter for size reference.

Some carvings from June

Here are a few shots of some in-process birds I've got going.

First is a low-head mallard I'm carving out of a gorgeous piece of red cedar that Tom Newell gave me. I'll be sad when this is done becuase it's such a beautiful piece of wood to work on.

Next is a pintail carved out of Oregon sugar pine with a basswood head. The tail is not carved in this picture yet, but I'll insert a flexible piece of plastic becuase this is designed as a gunning bird. This is the prototype from a new pattern I drew and I'm pretty happy with the results. This won't be the last I carve from this pattern.

Finally, here is a pair of mallards, also from new patterns I developed recently. I'll be doing another (abbreviated) photo journal of another drake just like the one in the photo here. no really fancy carving on the back becuase they are going to someone who will hunt them hard. Just a little detail on the back to add some interest, and a small undercut on the edges of the primary feathers. 

Some birds headed to Westlake

I haven't posted in some time, mostly becuase I've been working on competition birds, and I don't like posting them while I am competeing them. The good news is that I'm doing ok in the competitions. I won second best in show for gunning birds with my low head mallard at the Core Sound contest in December. In February I headed down to San Diego for the PSWA show. I ended up placing in the best of marsh, but my standard head mallard didn't make it any further. Then it sold so that bird is done competing. 

I'm headed to Westlake, OH tomorrow for the ODCCA show. I've got some birds to compete in the pool and the IWCA tank, but here are few birds I'm bringing just to display and sell. One of these is going into the Firday night swim and sell, sponsored by the decoycarvingforum.com, and other will be displayed in Dwane Ong and Tom Matus' room 123. Stop by and check them out if you are at the show.

Best of Show win at the Oregon Waterfowl Festival

My pintail won best of show in the Novice/Intermediate IWCA Style division at the Oregon Waterfowl Festival

This is the 2nd Best of show win for me this year. If I win one more contest in the intermediate division I'll have to move up to Open competition. I may just just jump into Open anyway.

Base-coated Pintail

Here's that cedar pintail I post a couple entries back. I went out to close the garage window before I went to bed and ended up with a base-coated bird before I made it back inside.

My Wigeon Rig is Coming Along

Here's a rig of wigeon and a single pintail I've got in progress. These four (3 drakes and 1 hen) are all sealed up and ready to paint. I've also got another low head hen and high head drake wigeon in the works, but they aren't really worth taking a picture of right now. One of the drakes is carved from basswood that I've had for a while now. The others are white cedar I bought from Dwane Ong.

Here's a pintail I've been casually working on as well. I'm still putting the finishing  touches on the carving. It's carved of white cedar but I've inlet a piece or hard maple for the tail.

I've also another hen and drake wigeon in the works, but they aren't really worth taking a picture of right now.