A little lunchtime practice between jobs. This was never really meant to see the light of day. Only a bit of practice (hence a few funky scrolls) but once I started I couldn't stop. Also playing around with English scroll. Hand pushed on cruddy steel. Having fun engraving steel again!
Welcome to the land of Cravingravin! It becomes better (or worse depending on your perspective) as the years mount up. It becomes 'who you are, not just what you do'.
Very nice practice indeed. Took me a long time to reach that level. Keep at it!!
Thanks for the encouragement y'all!
I should have said "Lunch Breaks" plural because this obviously wasn't done in an hour. Practice for me now revolves around proper shading and technique. When working under a scope things look different from that perspective. It's not until you back out with the naked eye that you find out if you achieved what you were looking for. I didn't work with a scope until this April of this year. Prior to that it was all with a 10 power optivisor.
The English scroll has been fun. This was my first quick attempt and I really like that it brings me back to my early days of working with hand power only. I cut the scrolls with gravermax and then hand push the inside and outside work. Seems to flow more naturally that way and it's easier to gauge the cut and release. Still a lot of work to go! One of these days I'll ask for a fine English critique.
Layne Z.
And thanks for that Marcus. I'll post a real effort for a critique once I get the feel for it. After this one I started popping teardrops against lines and it's becoming more naturally.
Layne