Creative Woodworks & crafts 2001-10, страница 54
J"I . » mgjm. - f ..; m$m: m . { w, ,, Meet Pete Beaupre Pete In hi© workshop by Ivan Whillock I Pete Bcauprc lias been canning for i over 70 years. That's right, 70 | years! He started as a kid with a e-pocketknife. In the years since, 1 he has built himself a well-i equipped shop with a large assort-: meat of hand and rotary tools. These days, Pete sits in his chair like the captain of a ship, with his array of carving tools spread before him, all within arm's reach. Although Pete no longer has any of the carvings from his childhood, he does have two from his days in the navy. Pete enlisted in 1940. I le says wryly, "They knew what they were doing when they set the hitch at six years. I served throughout the whole war. I went in just before it started and wasn't discharged until it was over." He was serving on the USS Lexington when it went down in (he Coral Sea. After that, he served for a time on a sub chaser. One of the carvings from Pete's navy days is a sai lor "telling stories" and the other is of a duck with depth charges on its shoulders, the mascot of the sub chasers. lie had the ship's officers autograph (he latter carving. Pete notes, "I could tell that the commanding officer really wanted that carving badly, but I didn't give it to him." Then he continues with a smile, "Maybe I should have." Bxcept for a few that he has donated to charitable causes, and a few that he has given away, Pete has of the carvings lie has done since his day s in the navy. "The carvings are more valuable to me than the money I could get for them," he explains. Pete's carving look off in earnest in 1976 when he signed up for one of my own evening classcs. Sincc then, he has enrolled in every evening session—two ten-week sessions a year that is until the year 2000, when illness caused him to skip a session. In those 24 years, he has tried a variety of styles: caricature, realistic figures, and birds, to name a few. He excelled in all of them, winning numerous awards back when he occasionally entered competitions. Eventually, bird carving became his favorite. Pete believes that research is the key. "There is no substitute for studying the actual bird," he says. Thai's not always easy to do. There arc state and federal laws governing the possession of both live and dead animals, so you don't "just pick one up off the highway." Fortunately, an enterprising carver can find examples at museums and nature centers. Pete takes careful measurements and copious notes on the birds he carves. When there is no other source available, Pete will study photos, but he uses them with care. They can give very limited, and sometimes distorted, information. Pete never uses other carvings as models because they have "Cowboy Watching the Action" - Walnut The painstaking effort that Pete puts into his research is echoed in the care that he puts into the carving itself. A single bird takes about 80 hours to carve. Pcle band saws a basswood blank and then, with gouges and knives, blocks out (he form. I le does most of the detail with flexible-shaft rotary tools, with specialized bits for making feather masses and various other feather effects. He often makes partially carved study models to try different techniques and effects before using them on the final carving. Pele uses a woodbuming tool with a temperature control and a very fine wire tip to bum in the tiny feather detail. Controlling the temperature and thus the depth of each line is important because some detail is very shallow while other detail J is quite deep. The feather detail alone can take many hours of concentrated effort, t: After cleaning off the burn residue, Pete covers the entire bird with gesso to prepare it for painting. The gesso must be applied carc-f: fully so it doesn't fill in the detail. A small amount of additional detail can even be carved or burned into (he gesso. Pete occasionally uses glass eyes, but he more oflen carves the eyes, painting the detail, then creating the glassy shine with epoxy. Pete feels that painting is the most crucial stage in creating a lifelike bird carving. He uses acrylic paint because it can be thinned to a wash and has a short drying time. I lowever, it does have one shortcoming in that the color f changes as it dries. Because of that, Pete docs f preliminary studies to determine the proper mix so that (he pain I will dry into ihe precise [color he wants. He has meticulously developed a series of "recipes" and has made tiny measuring spoons so that he can get an exact I mix and then repeat it whenever he wishes. An important part of bird carving is creating an environment that properly shows the bird off. Pele uses a great deal of ingenuity in creating environments. A real pine bough would shed its needles, so he carves wood lo fool the eye into thinking that the bough is real. All of the stems, leaves, and branches arc created rather than found. His Pilcatcd woodpecker, for example, is mounted on a branch that looks as if it might have been found in (he woods. I lowever, Pete carved it out of basswood to look that way. Art and design are important to the final effect of an environment. No matter how simple and understated it might be, it all takes careful planning. Bach composition, too, is designed to create a sense of life. Pete achieves that by emphasizing motion in Ihe flow of lines in the branches, stems, and leaves. The bird, loo, has a tilled head, an open mouth, an extended wing, or is in some type of movement. Pete's birds look as if, at any moment, they could fly away. Clearly, il lakes both art and craftsmanship to bring a piece of wood to life. Through years of persistence and study, plus skill and imagination, Pete Beaupre has accomplished just that. What a legacy!*! Testing" - Walnut already been "interpreted.' own observations. He prefers to base his carvings on his 12 • Creative Woodworks & Crafts October- 2001 |
