This gentleman was an avid salt water fisherman, his wife commissioned this piece and after telling me a little bit about him she asked if I could do a piece with a boat leaving the dock. As Christians they certainly believed in life after death and when I presented the piece to her, I didn't need to explain, she said, "He's looking down from Heaven and everything's okay."

This portrait was made to hang in a glass dome. The ivory piece was a cross section of an Elephant tusk about 3/16" thick. The piece was prepared with a groove around the perimeter then wrapped with a square, twisted, sterling silver wire, creating a simple but nice looking frame. Before I take on a portrait project I like to learn a little about the people or person I'm doing it of. In this case the Father was a Stone Mason and the Mother loved to work in her rose garden. The photo below shows a tiny little trowel and a rose I made with sterling silver to place on the glass dome's base.

When the gentleman asked me to do this portrait of his wife, he asked if I could put a Turkey wing feather in her hair and show her with bare shoulders, I assured him I could. He told me this piece would be going in a sterling silver bracelet he was making for himself. Sometime later he showed me the finished bracelet and it was very, very nice, He was truly a gifted Silver Smith.

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It was a real pleasure working on this Damascus letter opener made by Master Knife Maker, J.P. Miller of Fairbank, Iowa. the handle is some really nice Mastodon Ivory Click on J.P's name and go to his web site to see some really awesome custom knives.

Okay, so this isn't really a portrait per say but it is a portrait of who Jesus Was and Is. In John 21: 15 - 17 Jesus is instructing Simon Peter to "Feed My Sheep." I know I will never be able to adequately put the words of our Lord Jesus Christ into picture form but I am humbled by the opportunity to try. I can only pray that Reverend Terry Cosier will live a long life and feed many of the Lords sheep the word of God and fill His pastures in Heaven with untold numbers to sing His praises for Eternity.

SCRIMSHANDERS, in the note above I suggested you should maybe CONSIDER our REPRODUCTION SERVICE as a means to provide your customer with the 6 or 8 additional pieces, or whatever they need without spending their life savings.

The piece below fits that scenario to a "T." The husband (Skip) of this lady (Virginia) ordered the engraving, then before I started on it I asked him, if he had the chance would he like one for each of their two sons, or more if he wanted. As it turned out we did the original engraving and 10 reproductions which we mounted on 4" dia. walnut plaques with a keyhole on the back for hanging on the wall. Needless to say he was very pleased, as were his 2 sons and 8 of their closest friends. Now you can offer your customers the additional pieces they want at a very reasonable price, click here, to learn about our "Reproduction Service."

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Shown at Approx Actual Size
of 2-3/16" wide by 2-3/4" tall

Skip & Virginia are very close friends, when we first got started doing living history events they tucked us under their wings and showed us all of the do's and don't's. We camped next to then for nearly 25 years at many events and got to know them as close as you would your own family members, In fact, they are truly part of our family.

Here's the line drawing I made from the photo above, I reduced it down with my computer to fit on the ivory, then with a very sharp glovers needle I transferred the image to the ivory, I explain this process in more detail below.

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This photo shows the steps I use
when I'm doing a portrait, as described in the paragraph below.

The Scrimshaw portrait at the right
is approximately 50% larger than
its actual size.

The method I use to transfer an image from a photo
to the ivory or other material.

Depending on the size of photo I'm given to work with, I may scan it into my computer, enlarge it, or reduce it and convert it to black & white and print it out, I like to work from something about 5" x 7". if possible. The next step is to lay a sheet of clear acetate over the photo I converted to black & white and with an artists technical ink pen I trace over only the main features in the photo. (NOTE: In the line drawing above I tried to capture to much detail and when I transferred the sketch to the ivory, as described further down, I had to many dots and couldn't tell what went where, so I had to re-sand the dots off of the ivory piece and start over.) Once I've traced just enough to maintain the proper proportions, once again, I scan the tracing into the computer and reduce it to size I need to fit on whatever material I'm working on. I spray a very thin coat of artist's adhesive on the back of my paper pattern and place it on the material, then carefully, using a very sharp needle, I poke dots through the paper into the material, being careful not to miss any really important lines, like the lips, or an eye. With the pattern transferred, the paper can be removed and a little ink applied to make the tiny little dots show up more clearly, then it's just connect the dots, well, I guess it's a little more involved than that but preforming these steps to do portraits helps me maintain the proper proportions, like I said, with most animals, getting close is probably good enough but with portraits you pretty much have to be right on. Also, I tell anyone I'm helping to get started, whether I'm working on an animal or a portrait of a person, I always do the mouth, nose and eyes first, if you get them right, the rest just falls into place. Also, at that point if you have to sand them off, you only have hours invested, not days.

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We Also Do
Portraits of Farms & Homes

We also do portraits of homes, barns and other structures, or just about any person, place or thing you have fond memories of. This was a large house that was converted into a law office. The stone pillars holding the sign were fashioned after the stone pillars that hold up the covered front porch. This photo is to small to see it but the house had a red clay tile roof like you sometimes see on Spanish style homes.

This was my Grandpa's barn, it was built in 1926 and was used back then to raise horses for the calvary. I hold in my heart many wonderful memories of this old barn as well as the other buildings, timber and creek around the farm. I don't remember how many acres the farm had but there was always some place to explore. I don't think we ever missed a Sunday going up to Grandpa's farm. As I got older I was even allowed to spend a week or two every summer, helping with milking, slopping the hogs and other daily chores. Politicians may take away from us many things but they will never take away the memories we hold dear. I just hope and pray my Grandchildren will have memories of their youth that they will cherish like the ones I have of my youth.

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