Question: how long did it take you to be really good

I should have added this. Get a copy of one of my books. Read the biographies of the engravers and look at their work. You will see that there are no overnight wonders there. One thing that I have found in common with all top engravers that I have interviewed and written about is that they were all interested in artistic things from a very early age. The engraving may have developed many years later but the artistic urge was there from the beginning.

It's all been said in the previous posts.

How good you get at it depends on the inner drive that you have. If you spend an hour a week practicing then it's fair to say you won't get very far. If you spend every spare waking hour drawing and cutting then you will advance quicker. Sleep, kids, family, eating and paying bills is highly overrated.

But.........and this is the big but!!!

Not everyone is destined to be a great engraver like Coggan, Strolz, Welch, Churchill, Lovenberg, Alfano etc etc etc. Some will be mediocre at best.......but that doesn't matter. It's the enjoyment and pleasure that you derive from it that's important. Yes, it can be frustrating and hair pulling at times. But anything worthwhile we do in life isn't easy. It takes hard work, commitment and an inner desire to succeed at what you are doing that makes the difference. And that applies to anything we do in life, weather it be raising a family or engraving. Just do your best on the day and enjoy the moment. Tomorrow always brings new challenges and adventures.

Cheers
Andrew

i'm kinda like sam w. i'm at a point where i could "get good", but the problem with my eyes just wont cooperate to allow improvement. realistically, the quality of my work has gone down hill over time. things like fine shading, well it aint so fine anymore. fortunately, i know my limitations and no longer attempt to exceed them. getting "good" would be different for the individua.l i suppose.

Wow! What great answers! Thank you ALL for sharing your thoughts and examples of early work. This is an awesome forum and I hope to someday have the guts to show you my work for a critique but the experience level here is a bit mind blowing. I would at least hope for a C plus. I loved seeing early work if any of you are willing to share more.

Also, Sam...saw the safety video...you and your wife are funny. May need professional help....ha....is that what you do for date night?

I will be attending GRS in April...a good start I think.

Grs sounds like a great idea. I think any amount of one on one time with a good engraver will teach you little things that are very important. Like you are holding your graver wrong. Etc. Do show your work. Don't worry about that. If you click on my name you can scan through all my work since before I got my chisels on here. I am obsessed though

Thanks for sharing that Sam. And Martin that early work of yours still looks pretty incredible to me.

I am already jealous of you Dani Girl. Your work is looking awesome. I am impressed.

It's like this. You don't know what you don't know. Never ask your mom what she thinks of your work. It will always be fantastic.
I just assume I still suck. Whenever I look back on my work from a few years ago I think how could I have done something that bad. And it just continues. I know I'm improving but I know that in a few years I'll look back on this year's work and shake my head.

Otto Carter said:

Never ask your mom what she thinks of your work. It will always be fantastic.

Click to expand...

Was just about to say you'll be great in no time if you ask your mummy.

The basic rule of thumb is, It takes 10000 hours to become proficient with most newly learned skills

T.G.III said:

The basic rule of thumb is, It takes 10000 hours to become proficient with most newly learned skills

Click to expand...

In conjunction with this AND the GRS class, most people seem to progress in plateaus, depending on time spent. You begin to see things after 10 hours that made no sense to start. After 20 hours there can be another growth...and so on, usually geometric or doubling each step. At 100 hours , your work will show marked improvement, if you continue trying to improve and grow. By 10,000 hours you should be very comfortable in the steps you take...BUT...as Brian Marshall has said, it is then (or even late) time for another class. Continue to be taught, as you can afford it, and continue to push your skills.

diandwill said:

In conjunction with this AND the GRS class, most people seem to progress in plateaus, depending on time spent. You begin to see things after 10 hours that made no sense to start. After 20 hours there can be another growth...and so on, usually geometric or doubling each step. At 100 hours , your work will show marked improvement, if you continue trying to improve and grow. By 10,000 hours you should be very comfortable in the steps you take...BUT...as Brian Marshall has said, it is then (or even late) time for another class. Continue to be taught, as you can afford it, and continue to push your skills.

Click to expand...

This is true, to expand a bit on the 10000 hour rule, that is the time it takes to serve an apprenticeship in the trades. That works out to 40 hours a week for the next 5 years to achieve a proficient skill set with the tools and knowledge of execution, I don't see this as being out of line. Then there is the fact that there are at least 2 separate skill sets needed, the art and the tooling, 20000 hours or about 10 years. This can be shortened with the available classes and various masters that are willing to share.

In the end its all subjective really.

T.G.III - up to this moment, your post - it seems that you and I are the ONLY ones on this forum who have read or heard of Malcolm Gladwell...

What he writes about is not new, and it is controversial in some ways - but I generally agree with it. There will always be a few exceptions - nature itself makes a few of those. But not commonly.

I was not one of the exceptions...


Brian

"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, a great read along with his other thought provoking books. Love them all.

Good on you Lee! Someday we'll have to share booklists... especially the most thought provoking ones


Brian

I believe you and will have a very enjoyable and long chat

Today is the fifth year anniversary since I first met my first teacher and since I have seen a graver for the first time.. I recently realized that my hand eye coordination with a graver has gotten really good, I can make a graver do most of what I want it to do..

That was followed by another realization..

All the struggle to learn to use those tools.. Is just the price you pay to actually start the learning curve, all the work is ahead of you..

Same goes for everything involving jewelry and surface embellishment, when you know how to use a brush.. You still don't know how to paint. That's another thing entirely

I have read something from Steve Ellsworth (might be here on the cafe?) He's a rather accomplished coin carver and what he was saying was that carving had gotten to a point where the goal of every coin was simply to make a better job than the previous one.

Those are, at least, my 2 cents

Find yourself an old grumpy teacher that gives you tasks that are far beyond your skill level, that points out errors bluntly but explains how to fix them. And treasure the moments where your fellow craftsmen look at your work and say "this is wrong, you should do this again".. It stings but makes your work better, every time.

Inviato dal mio XT1032 utilizzando Tapatalk

Brian Marshall said:

T.G.III - up to this moment, your post - it seems that you and I are the ONLY ones on this forum who have read or heard of Malcolm Gladwell...

What he writes about is not new, and it is controversial in some ways - but I generally agree with it. There will always be a few exceptions - nature itself makes a few of those. But not commonly.

I was not one of the exceptions...


Brian

Click to expand...

I didn't read the books, I served the apprenticeship.
:beatup:

i've following this thread for awhile and i'd add this: the standards by which engraving qualifies as "good" have risen dramatically over the years. during the early '80s, i was considered something of a prodigy in my early 20s, but looking back my work then couldn't hold a candle to the likes of Danae, Jo Ryall, and some other relative newbies on the scene today. i'd be embarrassed to put my old stuff next to theirs.

As did I, in a way... Malcolm Gladwell's book did not exist until a few years ago.

Not a full time and formal apprenticeship, but doing some (most) of the grunt work and serving as the main source of amusement to Victor Vasquez every weekend for 3 or 4 years.

I'd get there Friday afternoons and be in the shop all day and half the nights Saturdays and Sundays - as late as he'd let me. Leave early Monday mornings.

Slept in my camper shell parked 30 feet from the entrance to the basement shop. Joyce would wake me in the mornings for breakfast...


Most of the rest of my time was spent stabbing myself with push gravers and taking the bark off my knuckles in my home shop.

Eventually, I got it figured out. Or so I thought.


When I took my first two week class from John Barraclough in '87 or '88, I thought I was no longer "entry level" - after all, I'd been doing it for money well over 15 years at that point - but mostly on gold and silver.

So.... being as how I was young and more than a little overconfident, I had figured I'd see what was in in his 3rd level "advanced" class?

If I remember right, for some reason, maybe scheduling or the class was full - and I didn't get into it. But there was space in the "intermediate" level...

I could at least get a taste of what might be hidden up in the "advanced" class and besides, I'd never met a real, live gun engraver "up close and personal" at that point.


Anyway, long story short, I got into that class. I think silverchip/Dave and maybe another forum member or two were also in it? Or maybe I'm misremembering who was in Sam Welch's or Eric Gold's class in the following years?


It was what is now euphemistically called a "life changing experience"! Wow! By the second week of John's class I knew that I didn't know squat about "serious hand engraving".

And it has gone on from there. Being as how I am not a prodigy, it took a long long time.


There is a lot more to this story as well as the advent of the power assisted tools that I will tell about another day. Got a student who wants to sprue up some wax models we plan to cast this weekend and I haven't eaten dinner yet.


Later,

Brian