Eagle Eye

In the last post, the last picture was of an eagle eye. There was (at least) one major mistake in the carving of the eye because I mis-traced the pattern. The tear duct on the eagle ended up being about 3 times larger than it should have been. Since I was just practicing, I went ahead and finished up the piece. I also left the piece as a flat carving as I was using it as an  entry in a coaster carving challenge on Leatherworker.net. One of the main things Jan always impresses on me is to pay attention to detail.

Sunday afternoon  I had a chance to carve the eagle eye again, tracing it correctly and doing some embossing on the carving. You can see in the new picture the difference embossing makes. In the first carving you could tell I was trying to carve an eagle. In this new picture, by using the techniques Jan has taught me, you can start to see the fierceness in the bird's eye. One of the things Jan pointed out to me when we were doing the eagle lesson is that the eye of a song bird  is on the side of the face while   the eyes on birds of prey face forward. By making a cut under the brow ridge and pushing the ridge out, you  get a lot of depth to that area. Then by stamping down in front of the eye, and raising the back side of the eye, the eye starts to look forward. These little changes to the flat carving make a big difference and that's why I really enjoy extreme embossing!