I would like some advice regarding shading. This is a practice plate I doodled on to try out the 120 and also to practice cutting scrolls and shading. There's no "design" here, just kept adding stuff for practice. The style I cut is typically early 19th century roccoco which I find is cut much deeper than modern work. Perhaps due to the lack of magnification. At any rate, the shading on the leaf in the center, just under the poppy type flower, is a disaster. How should an element like this be shaded?. Any and all advice regarding anything on this plate would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Cody
BTW yes, the scroll in the upper left is a wreck. I was paying so much attention to depth control with that 120 that I forgot I was cutting a curve. :)

Cody Tetachuk
10/22/2006 3:01:28 PM

Hi Cody

Looking good.

I can't really explain shading with words and judging by what I've seen of other engravers work it can be a fairly individual thing. From minimal cuts to heaps of them and everything in between. All of them are very effective.

Here's some suggestions.

1. Ron Smiths book on advanced scroll design (a must have book for us beginners)

Another book that's excellent is the FEGA 2002 Cllectors edition engravers profiles. Great close up photos well worth studying.

You can buy both books on this web site and they're both worth their weight in gold.

2. Go to Sam Alfano's web site at http://www.igraver.com It's excellent and he gives some really useful tutorials.

3. Buy some castings, again from this web site. I found them invaluable

What I find useful when I'm studying all the pictures, castings etc. Is to study one leaf at a time. Sometimes when looking at everything you get overwhelmed and go into visual overload.

Study one leaf at a time, draw and shade it with a pencil as big as you can on a piece of paper and keep rubbing it out till you start to get a feel for it.

Lines closer togeather look darker. Lines further apart look lighter. Deeper lines can look darker. Cross hatching can make areas look even darker. Use your pencil to see how all thet works.

The biggest thing is to just keep studying, drawing and practicing and one day it will just click into place. Keep looking at ways to improve on what you did the day before.

It looks to me personally as though you are heading in the right direction, keep it up and keep posting photos.

Best regards
Andrew

Andrew Biggs
10/22/2006 6:23:07 PM

hi Cody .. first of all i think your scroll work is pretty good . and for your shading i feel that the shade lines aren't long enough, also they don't follow the contour of the spine . but that is how i would do it i suggest like Andrew said get Ron Smith book and if you can get to the engravers guild show in Reno there you will get a lot of help .. Ron p.

Ron Nott
10/23/2006 9:12:10 AM

Andrew, I have been considering Smith's book for awhile. I doubt there would be any early 19th cent designs in there but you never know. Even though the designs are likely far too contemporary, I suspect there would be alot to learn from it that could be applied to what I'm doing. It's certainly on my wish list. Interesting you would mention the castings. Was looking at them about a year ago but not too seriously. Then, I bought some lockplate castings taken from an early 19th cent english sxs flintlock to make locks for the gun I'm building. I asked to have the engraving eliminated when cast as I didn't want to recut what was there, rather cut my own. The plates came as requested but the hammer castings came with the engraving intact. I never could get my engraving to look right and didn't know why so I took the optivisor and looked over the original engraving on the hammers. What an eye opener. Iwas not cutting near aggresively enough. My cuts were always fine and shallow (what you likely want in modern stuff). The cuts on the originals were deep and aggressive. Yes there certainly IS huge value in castings over pictures.
Ron, I'll try some longer shade lines. When you say "also they don't follow the contour of the spine", should they die into the far side of the main stem or should they die into the near side of the main stem or???

Thanks for the comments guys

Cody

Cody Tetachuk
10/23/2006 7:20:44 PM