Over the past 20 years of carving, I have dreamed of entering and winning the pairs competition at the Ward's World Decoy Competition. On several occasions, I started down the pathway to doing this and regretfully have fallen short. My first attempt at Buffleheads resulted in only the drake being hastily finished. My second attempt at Barrow's Goldeneye resulted on only a drake smoothie being finished. My third attempt at Greenwinged Teals resulted in a beautifully finished hen that won second best of show in the Advanced category but alas, she had no mate. My forth attempt, was with a pair of Redheads, one of which was finished in time and the other, the hen, was finished a whole year later. She went on to win second best of show in the Advanced Decorative Group. Last year, for the April 2012 Show, I built clay models for the first time that in turn exhausted my available time, and modelled them to carve and texture two beautiful Gadwalls that would have been very competitive. The clock ran out during painting so the drake is still in drab primer and the hen is 1/2 painted! ! ! ! !
So here it is...20 years since I began carving and 5 missed attempts at the World's Pairs, and I am going to try again with a pair of Canvasbacks.
This time, I am going to record the journey and make it available to a small circle of friends and family to follow. There will ups, downs, successes, failures, high and certainly lows as I work may way through this pair. I am not looking for complements rather comments on what you think and how you see things that can be improved.
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