The Rohner Hammer, finished

I thought I had explained about the history of this piece but maybe I didn't.  John Rohner is one of the most well-respected men in the world of hand engraving.  For several decades, he has been asking engravers to put their work onto hammer heads for his collection.  It is a tremendous honor to be asked to contribute to the hammer collection.  I'm not sure there are any other ivory hammers in the collection, I think this may be the first one.  He left the design up to me, but asked that I somehow include a grizzly bear.  He was given the name of "Golden Grizzly Bear" by a Sioux medicine man some years ago.

If you don't know what scrimshaw is, it's a type of hand-engraving.  These images are not painted onto the surface, but instead they are engraved into it.  This is done entirely with microscopic dots engraved into the ivory.  Ink fills the dots to give the image its color.  It's an incredibly time-consuming process.  This entire piece is two inches long, and one inch in diameter.  It is made of pre-ban elephant ivory, and is a replica of an engraving hammer (obviously one would not normally hammer anything with something made of ivory!)

August 10 work in progress: Rohner hammer

The thing about  making plans... they totally change.  ;-)  I originally envisioned this being fairly straightforward and simple: a bear on the front face, and some type of small adornment on the side.  You know what though, it didn't feel right.  If ever a piece just begged for full-coverage awesomeness, this is it.  So it's ended up a whole lot more complicated than I planned!  Looking pretty snazzy though, I love how this is turning out.  Still need to finish the other side, and then put the bear on it.  It'll rock your socks.

August 1 work in progress: Rohner hammer

I thought I'd better show you how things are going.  I know I said I was going to start on the hammer face, but after kicking around a bunch of ideas I decided what to do with the other parts, so I decided to save the face (which will be the grizzly bear, the most fun and delicate image on the piece) for last.  I decided that some geometric patterns would look really classy and wouldn't make the piece excessively "busy" (like putting several grizzly images on it might have done).  It also gives it a bit of a Native American look (I hope, anyway) which ties into why Mr. Rohner asked me to put a grizzly on it in the first place.

Geometric stuff kinda makes my brain shrivel up, it's like doing math.  ;-)  I was planning to have this portion be just black and white but now I'm kinda thinking those "white" triangles might need to be in color.  Of course that means more time but hey, gotta do what I gotta do!

Anyhow, stay tuned, more to come...  I think I'll do the sides now (between my thumb and finger) and then decide about color.

puzzling over the next project(s)

There are two projects I'm attempting to start on.  They both have been on the list for a LONG time, and they both have me pretty thoroughly stumped.  Sometimes composition comes so easily.  Other times... not so much.  One's a drawing, one's scrimshaw.  I'll only be able to show the scrimshaw on here at this time.

Here's the surface I'll be working on:

That's an ivory hammer head, and it was custom made for me to work on.  I'm creating a piece for John Rohner's engraving hammer collection.  To my knowledge this is the only ivory one that's been made so far.  Obviously a real engraving hammer would not be made of ivory!  Over many decades, Mr. Rohner has asked various engravers to engrave a hammer head for him.  It's a tremendous honor, and I think I've been a little intimidated to actually work on it...  The design is totally up to me, with just one specification: he wants me to include a grizzly bear.  I've been brainstorming for a long time about this, and in the last few days have sketched out numerous ideas.  I think I'm getting a bit closer to something good.  But I only have one part of it figured out for certain, and that's the flat face of the hammer.  So although I prefer to have things all figured out before I start, I think I'll go ahead and start work on the face even though I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do on the sides or on the back.  Whatever I decide to do won't change the face though, so maybe I need to just get this thing on the bench and see what develops!

As for the drawing that's got me stumped, well, I'm sure I'll have an "aha!"moment pretty soon.  Maybe I need to go outside and wander around the horse corrals for inspiration.  ;-)