The Smirking Gargoyle

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Drawing Challenge Day 80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_HlPboLRL8

Drawing Challenge Day 79

Her face is slightly distorted because I sketched it with the page leaning away from me on a flat surface- I do that frustratingly often. (Don't mind that dude on the left)

Drawing Challenge Day 78

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjpyi4FWmFI

Drawing Challenge Day 77

I become less articulate when tired. And this carries over into my art as well...... Long day of blacksmithing and driving meant this day was quick and abstract.

Speed painting of Arthur (A friend whose face was convenient) in gouache from life. I finally got a couple travel brushes to keep in my kit, and used one of them for this. Wonderful, perfect. Excellent brush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40d6wTnIXqA

Drawing Challenge Day 75- Plus Custom Blacksmithing Bracket project

I'm behind on posting. But not on my drawings....

Long days blacksmithing at the fair doesn't leave much time for putting together blog posts XP

So on day 75 I had a couple come into the booth at the fair wondering about ordering some custom decorative bracket things for the inside of a window frame somewhere in their house.

They ended up giving me some basic guidelines and letting me have artist license on the specific design! :D

This is what I eventually settled on-

(This is officially my drawing for the drawing challenge, btw)

A couple other ideas I played with up there are the right- The basic requirements are just that outline- with the right angle on the bracket, and the curve on the outside.

Next to get everything measured and sketched out, and starting figuring out what lengths of what stock size I needed to start with.

I used the band saw to split the stock three ways before shaping and drawing the pieces out. After that I forged the swirls with the fish-tail scrolls, and got them all marked and ready to make a tenon to join the leaf thing to the scroll.

We have a guillotine tool on the treadle hammer to cut those square shoulders and make a clean tenon. Once I got it most of the way shaped, I finished and rounded it to 5/16 with a file.

All the pieces fitted and forged- and ready for assembly.

Ready to heat and peene over.

Got it :) A pretty crisp joint for my first time.

Now to figure out where the rivets go to attach the scrolls to the bracket piece. There's was some fudging on this part- especially the second bracket- because I free-handed the scrolls and they weren't perfectly the same. Nor was the leaf pointing out from the center of the scroll at a perfect right angle on both brackets. So- measure, eyeball, mark, drill, rivet.

Also, I only had super short rivets. So I had to countersink the back sit of the bracket pretty deeply, then reach inside with a divet tool thing (like a dull punch) to peene them out inside XD

But it turned out alright :)

It's just a good thing they were decorative, not structural.

The couple who ordered these were super nice, and also enthusiastic and supportive. The guy filmed me working and put it on YouTube as well. There's a picture of the brackets installed at the end :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExFVKT4atAY