How to carve a Wood Pecker and mount it all fancy

        Happy Easter everyone.

 Here's a quick project that might make a good gift to a bird watcher, or someone who want's a branch in their house with out any good excuse to have one.

What you'll need:

-Piece of soft wood, I recommend basswood

-1/4 inch hard wood dowel

-small wooden plaque from a craft store, though you could just use a cut off piece of 2x4 I suppose

-dried branch

-red, white and black paint with a brush or two unless you plan on using your fingers

-chisels, knife, hand saw

 

I started out with a piece of basswood, I forgot the dimensions but one from a craft store's 6 pack with 2 "large" pieces and 4 skinnier pieces that people care out "5 minute wizards" or Santas out of.

As always I punched up "wood pecker" into G**gle and looked for a smaller breed. 

  

in this case I found a Red headed wood pecker from Audubon.org, great place for bird info/ pictures by the way.

 From there I free handed the 'pecker in a..uh..pecker pose with pencil, then going over the pencil in ball point pen. The ink can get on your hands during the carving process but it's better than the graphite rubbing away and you having to guess rather than follow the pattern.

                                                            Hey there good lookin'

*note: as you can see that bill is god awful, so I opted to carve it away in favor of a carved dowel much like the old shore bird decoys.

                                   I always draw the side of the bird on the wood first, then use chisels to rough out the basic shape. I'd use my jig saw to cut it out but the wood block is rather small, and I like my fingers too much for that.

 Using a band saw would be ideal, but I don't have one in working order. Well.. the motor runs but the blade dosnt spin. I guess that's why I received it free from someone else who also received it for free.                    Don't look a gift band saw in the mouth, I guess.

                                  

                              Okay, now that you've got the side profile roughed out, I turned it over to draw the top down view. I couldn't find a great view of the bird's back so I had to guess about the dimensions. It's a decoy after all, things dont need to be exact, it can look 'folksy' in my mind.

                                                                  ehh close enough

                                Same as the last step, I roughed out the sides with with chisels, and did a little more 'finer' carving with my knife. Guess I got a little carried away and forgot to take pictures of the next 2 steps.

          So now you have the Wood Pecker carved out, I drilled a hole for the beak ( i recommend doing this while it's still very rough so you don't need to sand it twice), and a hole on it's belly to mount the bird to the branch.

From there go ahead and sand 'er down, cut up 1/4 inch hard wood dowel for the beak and "leg" and use a paint of your choosing.

I like Acrylic paint, it's much quicker to dry compared to Oils, much easier to find/safer than lead*, and easy to clean up. (*side note: my Lady's grandad, a house painter by trade, told me "Nothing painted like lead paint", with a smile on his face.)

                                                        

                                    You could give 'er little glass eyes, but painting them in is okay too.

So now you have the hard part done. But what are you gonna mount it on? It would look silly with a standard square wood base. You want something with more of  natural look, yes I know what you want. You could drill a hole in a tree and stick 'em in there. or maybe a scrap piece of fire wood and hang it on your porch. Fuck it, let's make things slightly more complicated. At the end of last summer I cut down a small tree while doing some yard work and threw it up in the garage rafters for it to dry out. 

I cut the little guy so it was maybe 2 wood peckers high(the one you carved, not life sized) and dug around for little unused wooden plaques she got when she was making prints. Perfecto base.

                       From there I clamped the branch to my bench and drilled a hole in the center.

                                      

                                                                 or about center..

                       Go ahead and drill a hole in the center of the wooden base too. 

 

                                            Don't forget to take off the sticker, if there is one.

                                                                          shit.

             Before mounting everything together, go ahead and use some wood stain or paint the case. Or you could just leave it as is, it's your project after all.

      This is when all the pieces come together. Screw the the bast to the branch, push the bird into the drilled hole in the side of the branch and Bing-Bango you got yourself some Fancy-Schmancy-Folk-Art!

oh one last thing, make sure you sign and date your work. Who dosnt love art for art's sake, but too many decoys have been made by "anonymous" carvers though the years. If made right these things can last longer than we do. Make sure you leave at least your initials so some hipster of the future can list it as 'signed' on ebay. Hey who knows, 50 years from now people might be looking for more of your work.