oh you know, stuff

No work in progress pics tonight, things are at a slightly ugly stopping point. I have the first layer of background down and it's pale and very unfinished. Kinda like half dressed. I hate to leave you with something ugly. I've made some changes to the original background plan. It was going to be very leafy, like the turkeys were up against plants. But it's easy to forget that when your art piece is only an inch and a half tall it doesn't "read" the same as the full sheet of paper on which I sketched it! I didn't like the leafyness, too busy looking and I was afraid it would kinda pull the focus away from the birds.

When I finish these grips I am going to be making some big changes to the "engraving bench" as I will come to call it. I haven't used the engraving vise for months, it was too uncomfortable. But I NEED to get into metal engraving and therefore NEED the vise, and also need to avoid the really funky back pain that accompanies being in an awkward position all day, so I'm getting some new equipment and will probably be cutting a large hole (U-shape) out of my desk into which the vise will be placed. That'll make more sense when it happens. But I gotta get these grips done, that's priority.

I had started to ramble on here about another topic but I'm going to leave that for another day.