New Carousel Project - The Hippo

As some of you may remember my dad carved carousel animals, mostly horses. At one point he had decided that doing the full size ones was not as fun and they took up a lot of space. So he tried a couple of smaller ones just to see how he liked doing those. There ended up being two; an Ostrich and a Hippo. My sister will eventually get the Ostrich, just another one on the painting list.

I painted the Hippo following my dad's directions and with the paints he specified. The titanium white was old was actually pretty lumpy and it really affected everything I used it in, which was mostly the blue skin color that he insisted on (I have no idea why, it doesn't match the Hippo pictures he had on his workbench). The neat part of the Hippo is that the mouth is actually hinged.

At one point it was sitting on a furniture mover which was a simple frame with four wheels just to make him easier to move around. Someone let a rambunctious 5 year old ride while it was on this frame and the whole thing tipped over, smashing the Hippo's mouth and breaking the hinge. About six months ago my mom found someone interested in fixing him and it just came to me a couple of days ago. We have decided to completely repaint it in a more appropriate color and get rid of the weird surface texture from that titanium white paint that I used.  

I still need to finish Chester the Rooster so this one will probably be sitting in the shop for at least a couple of months before I can sit down with him.

The Hippo after repairs. If it wasn't for the fresh primer I wouldn't have been able to tell he had any work done on him. In the background you can see the box with my new Bosch 12" miter saw. It was on sale. I don't really have room for it right now but it was to good a deal to pass up.

Chester the Rooster - WIP

While the gaming front didn't see much action on my vacation, the weather was warm enough to get some work done on Chester the Rooster. My Dad finished the carving on this one quite a while ago, maybe as long as five years. This one is he carved, by request, for my Mom so I really want to blow it out of the water.

The painting will be done with a combination of enamels and artist oils but before I can get to the fun part the "canvas" needs to be prepared. Early on my Dad had put some primer on Chester but didn't go any farther than that. I spend one day filling and sanding and basically ignored the primer coat that he had put down. After I was happy with that work my first coat of primer went on. This coat is used to expose any flaws in the wood work. 

I let this dry over night and rolled Chester back outdoors for another round of sanding. During this I found some places that I had missed so another round of filling commenced. The idea is to make sure that the surface is as flawless as possible. Its a bit tedious but very much worth the effort.

Here is the point where Dad stopped

I did finish sanding back in September so Chester was ready for a coat of primer

If you look carefully you can see the areas where I have had to apply wood filler to fix blemishes in the wood work.

The band of wood filler around the neck is trying to hide the joint where the head is attached to the body. You can see that in a few places around the legs too.

Carousel Horses - Coming Up - The Chicken a Menagerie Animal

Its time to get ready to paint up one of the remaining unpainted carousel "horses" that were carved by my Dad. My Dad past away at the end of October in 2015 and he left one fully armored horse about 70% finished and another horse about 90% finished (known as the patriot because of the eagle and flag design on the romance side). there are three pieces that are pretty much ready to paint at this point; a small ostrich that stands about two feet tall, a decorative figure that would have been part of the carousel itself, probably on the organ, that also stands about two feet tall and the chicken that you see here. There is also a lion that needs to have its paint redone so at some point I'll need to strip and repaint that one. The lion is just tough to work with its really big weighing in between 400 and 500 pounds. The chicken was requested specifically by my Mom. Chickens are a long standing family joke but a Rooster was requested and carved just for her.

We have sat down and sorted through rooster pictures and have decided on a color scheme so I need to buy the paints that will get us close. I'll be using alkaloid enamel paints for this one which are getting a little hard to find now but there are still a couple of local sources for it.  It still needs some sanding work and a bit of carving. Mostly to reemphasize some of the detail in the feathers which has become obscured by sanding. That kind of carving I can handle. I'm hoping to at least get the sanding done this weekend during the garage sale since we will be out there for a couple of days.

Chester the Rooster

The "Patriot" horse has been transported up to Washington and the finish work is going to be done by my Dad's carving instructor Ken Means (you can google Ken Means and find him easy enough, you can also google William Shatner with carousel horse and find Ken's work that way!). The armored horse is going to be a problem. We want to see it finished but none of the local carvers are up to the challenge. There is to much work left for Ken to be able to finish it for us so that is not an option either. My mom is currently at a carousel convention in Cleveland (an annual convention no less) and she is hoping to find someone there willing to take it on.

The armored horse in is early stages.

The head of the armored horse, those are the blanks for the legs on either side of it.

You get a better sense of the leg blanks here, in reality the legs are almost finished. These are really old pictures.

The Ostrich. My Dad was considering doing the rest of his carving at this scale and moving away from the full size carousel horses and animals.

The New Project - Gavioli Maiden (Reproduction)

When my Dad carves carousel related items he tries to imitate a particular carver with each piece. For instance the big white horse in full stride  is carved in the Parker style. This maiden was part of a Gavioli Band Organ, circa 1910. He's not trying to copy the piece but to give it the same style. In that vein I will attempt to paint her in the original colors, which will include a lot of flowered lace work. Here are some pictures taken tonight and a picture from the book that he used as a carving reference. She is obviously not quite ready for painting but I might be able to pick her up next week. She stands a lot taller than I though, just about 41" tall, so a big piece to be sure. The airbrush will definitely get a workout with this one. When she is ready to paint, everything else will pretty much come to a halt.

Carousel Horses

I know that these are sitting in one of my many "galleries" but since it I'll be picking up a new piece to work on I thought I would bring them out front for a bit. These are full size carousel horses that were carved by my Dad and painted by me. There are another half dozen or so horses and animals in various stages of completion. He has painted one horse, a giraffe (although I did the butterfly) and a lion himself, but painting really isn't his thing. So here are the ones I have done and you can see some of the others in the background. These can be quite relaxing in some ways because I get to use a 2" house brush for most of it, for some reason a size 0 Kolinsky Sable just does not get it done.

 In this next one you can see the statue that he wants me to paint in the corner. Must be somewhere between 2' and 3' tall. The lion he painted is behind this horse, its not finished yet.

 An in process shot. I love being able to paint with a house brush.

 Hippocampus was the last one I did and that's my Dad next to it

 This is the horse my dad painted, the mane is done with gold leaf. You can see the Giraffe's neck on the edge of the picture that he painted.

 The current horse in the carving stage.