Behold, a portrait of old Bill Shakespeare himself. It is not a self portrait, but rather one done by myself in 1/8th inch oak plywood. Portraits in wood are quite popular among scollers. It is amazing how close you can capture the image of some one by converting a photograph of them into a scroll say pattern. I have cut patterns of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Judy Garland and more and they are great fun to do. Some are very simple, like this one and others are very complicated.
Now...before you ask me if I can do one of your Dad, Son, Baby, dog, Grandfather or someone else I must ask you to consider the following:
First of all I do not have a system yet for turning photographs into cutable patters. There are a couple on the market but their cost is a little to high to justify my purchasing them right now.
But I must say I am tempted because cutting portraits is a lot of fun. I know of a guy on-line who will make a pattern from any photo you give him...at 25 dollars a pop!
The second thing is, when people find out what you need to get paid for these they just look at you kind of stunned, swallow hard and say "Well never mind then. I'll pass." Most of the scroll saw artists that I know of sell portrait cuttings for from $75 to $1oo dollars framed and at least $50 unframed. Let me know if you think it would be worth my while to look into some pattern making programs for portraits. I am tempted. I just need a little push.
No comments:
Post a Comment