the next scrimshaw project

Okay, this is the beginnings of part two of the Greatest Generation project, a very large knife. Here's a pic I posted months ago before starting anything:


And here it is all wrapped and taped and padded so I can work on it:


The WWII theme will continue here, of course. This is one that has undergone a lot of changes. My client's original suggestions did not turn out to be feasible options for this piece, so there was a lot of brainstorming to come up with other ideas. My mind was actually sparked while perusing an article in one of my art magazines about a photographer of horses. The photos had these dark moody clouds in the background that really caught my attention, and that got me thinking about the sky, which got me thinking about airplanes.... AIRPLANES! Yeah! Those can be compositionally arranged to fit a long narrow space! That idea went over well and we were off and running. So the knife will feature a few of the iconic airplanes from WWII, one side representing the European theatre and the other side representing the Pacfic theater (corresponding to the Patton and MacArthur images on the pistol grips).


Now, I should have gotten a lot more done in the last few days, but guess who totally mashed her right thumb into the wall a few days ago while, um... I hate to even admit this... hunting rats... Yeah, that would be me. It's finally feeling better today (and what a lovely shade of purplish blue!) but it had all the strength of a bag of jell-o there for a little bit. I'm bad for thumbs.