07.12.04

I'm back from the NTA!!

I got two thirds, 75 on the squirrel and 78 on the tiger. I had hoped to do a little better than that, but I was happy with what I got. The judge was very nice and extremely knowledgeable and pointed out things on the mounts that I had never even noticed. I am going to fix what I can, and take them to state show in less than three weeks.

It was a really great show this year, with some of the best mounts I have ever seen all at one show. It was nice to not go alone this year, as both my dad and Robby went with me. I can't wait for next year!! It will be in Souix Falls, South Dakota next year which is ALOT further from me than any of the shows I have been to before, but I love the NTA so much I would hate to miss it. So we're going to drive, even if it is a 30+ hours trip.

Here are some better pictures of the mounts I took!

The jumping squirrel...

And the baby tiger...

I'm already going to begin my entries for next year soon !

06.20.04

Well, alot of time has passed since I last updated my journal.. and alot has happened since then !

I have been focusing my attention on preparing my entries for the National competition, coming up in just a little over two weeks (July 7-10!) I am taking two entries..

The first is a baby tiger, but alot smaller than the one that I took last year. This one is a full-blooded siberian and only one week old. It is so cute! Due to camera problems I am unable to post a picture of it right now but I will get a picture up just as soon as I can. I mounted it on it's belly in a sleeping position (since it's eyes hadn't even opened yet). I put it on an oval oak base and there are grasses all behind and around the tiger. I dried the grasses out and then spray painted them green and it actually turned out looking quite realistic. A picture is worth a thousand words though, so I will have a picture up on the website soon!

The second entry is a grey squirrel, not yet completed in this photo...(you can also see two antler mounts I just did!)

It is supposed to look like the squirrel is jumping from one limb to another, and when viewed from the front the squirrel looks as if it is leaping out at you. I will put a finished photo of it on the website when I get my camera working again. The finished squirrel has the clamps removed and the wire inserted and hidden in the limb. That way, it looks like it is suspended in the air with nothing more than the tail brushing against the limb. The finished piece will also have some moss around the limbs. I think it is a very unusual looking mount, which is good in taxidermy competitions because one of the main goals is to attract attention to your mount (you don't want something there that looks just like everyone else's). I have to give all the credit for the base to my boyfriend Robby, who has just been such a great help to me. He made the entire base for me.. he cut a section out of a whole live tree just to get the right sort of branch that was needed, sanded down the oak backboard, and put it all together. In fact, the whole concept of the piece was his idea, so I have him to thank for alot!! Robby will be going with me to the Nationals and attending seminars there so who knows, he may just want to become a taxidermist himself ;)

Here is a lifesize coyote I mounted for a customer! This coyote turned out so good, I wish it was for myself! I am working on a base for it right now...

Stay tuned for more updates and newer pictures of my competition pieces!...

05.03.04

Sorry for taking so long to update the journal!

I went to the Piedmont mini-course show April 22-24. It was a pretty good show as far as the seminars go, but I wish I could say the same about the judging. I took my coyote pedestal and scored a 78 (third) with it, which was a fair score that I was happy with because the coyote had several flaws I knew of. But, I also took along my National Champion mouse and that's where the problems began. The judge there "chose not to judge it", for reasons I never was quite able to understand, but I won't let one bad judge get to me after the awards my mouse won at Nationals -- I value the opinion of Chris Krueger (my judge at Nationals) very highly. I won't let this bad competition experience get to me at all. I'm already getting to work on my entries for the Nationals in July, and I can't wait!

Here are a few pictures of recent projects for you to enjoy...

A mouse rug for a customer!

Two nice deer taken by Tommie Clewis..

Not taxidermy-related, but a painting I recently did...

03.26.04

I was invited to attend and be part of "career day" at Evelyn Mack Academy in Charlotte, NC today. I took some of my mounts, and some forms and glass eyes, etc. to teach the kids a little bit about taxidermy! Here's a picture of me at the booth I set up...

I was glad to be able to do something like this, since many of the kids don't even know what taxidermy is!

I mounted the coyote pedestal a few days ago!! Here it is, not anywhere near being finished, but atleast you can see what it looks like...

Here are some behind the scenes photos...
This is the coyote cape before mounting

Since I am using an artificial nose, I had to cut the nose skin off of the cape! Here's what it looked like after the skin had been cut off

Here I am peeling the cartiledge from the ears in preparation for putting in the earliners

The form I bought was a closed-mouth form, but I wanted to show a little bit of teeth so I altered the form to a slight open mount, and removed the front mouth sections from an actual coyote skull. I cleaned them off and this is what the two peices looked like.

I then put them inside the form and secured them with some apoxie sculpt...

Here's some other views of the form.. from the side, with an earliner in place

The eyes are clayed in this picture. The form is now ready to have the skin put on!

Before I put the skin on, I put hide paste on the form. The head and back of the form are left without paste until the skin is in place, to avoid getting any paste on the fur.

And here's the coyote right after the skin was slipped on. It looks pretty bad at this point, but a few hours of work and it'll actually be looking like a coyote!

03.21.04

Once again, I have taken forever to update my journal! That's going to change though because soon I am going to be posting step-by-step progress of my next competition entry, a coyote pedestal!

I am going to be working on it all this week.. I've got to, since I want to have it done for the Piedmont Mini Course competition which is only a month away! That's plenty of time, if I work quickly. I think this is going to be a really nice piece. I bought the cape from a taxidermist I know in Montana so it's got really thick, quality fur and it's a beautiful color too. Instead of being a greyish-brown color like normal coyotes, it's mostly white with some black here and there. I'm going to be mounting it on a Brian Harness form, which seems to be a really nice form. It shows alot more detail than most coyote pedestal forms I've seen. I'm using competition Tohickon eyes with a schleral band (I may decide to give the eyes a rotation and show a bit of the schlera, that always adds so much expression). And I am using Jan Van Hoesen's competition ear liners for the ears, like I did for my red fox pedestal last year. Those liners are pricey but they're the only competition quality ear liners I can seem to find for coyotes, and hey, if it earns me an extra point, that's worth way more than $13! I haven't quite decided what kind of base I want to put it on yet. At first I was thinking I would do a snow scene, but then I thought that wouldn't contrast very well with the white coyote. So, I think I'll just do a "summery" scene. I've got a cool idea on how I'm going to finish the back of the pedestal, but I'll reveal that idea later once I see how it turns out ;) If it turns out how I want it to, I think it'll look very cool and definately set the piece apart from "typical" pedestals that are simply finished with leather on the back.

Unless I get the coyote done very quickly and have time to do another piece, I will probably only be taking the coyote to the Piedmont show. That's ok, though.. I do plan to have atleast three entries to take to the Nationals this year. That's not until July, though, so I've got a good while to think about that.

I'm almost finished with all the deer heads from this season; I've got one more to go which I plan to do in a few days. Then it's on to working on all the small mammals I've got to do. One of the latest things a customer brought was a roadkill skunk, and it doesn't smell too great! I've got it in my freezer right now and when you open the door, you can smell it (and it's inside two bags!!). Not good.. but I know a good recipe for removing skunk odor which worked pretty good on a skunk of my own, so things will be ok.

I got another freezer a few weeks ago, thank goodness! I was running out of room in my upright freezer, so I got another one. It's a 15 cu. ft. chest freezer and holds alot. I practically emptied out my upright freezer and it doesn't even fill half of this new one. I'm keeping large whole animals and stuff of my own in the new freezer, and keeping mostly customer specimens in the old one. Having them separated helps to clear up confusion sometimes.

Stay tuned for: Competition Coyote Pedestal photos!

02.22.04

Yes, I know I've waited too long to update my journal!
To summarize what's been going on in the past month.. I've mostly been working on alot of customer mounts. I got in another bobcat a few days ago (that makes #4 customer bobcat!), as well as a coyote for a lifesize mount, and a grey fox to be made into a rug! I've got all those to do as well as a couple deer heads left to be finished and quite a few squirrels. Life is busy!

I've been enjoying my .22 immensely; squirrels and just about everything else are out of season now so there's no more animals to shoot, but I'm still having fun shooting paper targets, cans, and just about anything else I can think of. I'm getting pretty good at it too.. it's alot easier to shoot and more accurate than my air rifle ever was.

An article featuring me just came out in the March NRA "American Hunter" magazine! It was really cool to be featured in such a popular magazine.. I'll have the article posted up as soon as possible!

01.30.04

Today's squirrel hunt went really well! I took my .22 out hunting for the first time, and it did it's job wonderfully..

I was really happy to have shot these squirrels, since tomorrow is the last day of squirrel season and I won't be able to hunt them again until November! Oh well, I'll have all year to practice target shooting with my new gun, and then I'll be all ready to go in the fall!

I was afraid that the .22 hollow point bullets might be a little too powerful for squirrels, and might blow an unrepairable hole in the skin. But I was surprised to find that the holes were really not all that big. The .22 will definately be my squirrel hunting gun from now on, since it did a much better job than the pellet gun (quicker death). It's also about two pounds lighter, so it's not as tiring to carry around the woods (And I'm going to install a sling on it which will help even more)
In addition to being mounted, these squirrels will also be tonights dinner!

01.24.04

I got my .22 rifle last night!! I am so excited about it! After much decision, I bought a Ruger 10/22. I feel it was a very good choice, as it seems like the 10/22 is one of the most popular .22s ever. It's a semi automatic gun with a 10-round magazine.. being able to take multiple shots will be very helpful when hunting!
I got it fitted with a BSA Radiant 3-9x40 scope. The reticle will light up bright red so it can be viewed better in low light!
I haven't sighted it in yet, but I will soon. I can't wait to start shooting with it! Here it is...

01.20.04

Here's my recently completed coyote pedestal, for a customer...

The first deer head of the year just went home with it's owner! Here's David Bumgarner with his deer..

Now I've got four more deer to go! Here's all the forms, ready to be mounted on!

When I was out walking in the woods, I found nice branch that I thought my grey fox would look good mounted on (since I didn't feel like making an elaborate habitat base for it). I think it looks quite nice mounted on it...

My mind never stops thinking of new things to try... lately I've been practicing making carvings out of antlers! I got the idea when I saw some carvings online.. so I took some scrap pieces and began to try it myself. My dremel works great for this type of thing! So far I have sculpted several miniature skulls out of antler. Here is my best one, which I made into a necklace. It is a miniature cat skull, about 1" long. The pictures show up a bit fuzzy, since it's so small. I am going to try making all sorts of different sculptures, and once I get quick at it I may even sell some of them.

I have got some exciting news -- I am going to be getting a .22 rifle! I asked my parents and they said that as long as I am extremely careful with it, I can have one. I am happy to be going up to the next level.. I like my air rifle, but it's just not powerful enough for some of my needs. I will most likely be getting my new rifle this weekend, and when I do, I will post pictures of it!

01.07.04

I hope everyone had a happy new year! It's the start of a brand new year for me, which brings many things to look forward to.. particularly, competitions! I am getting ready to begin some of my entries since the competitions are not that far off.. I will be attending the Piedmont mini course (which is like a regional competition) in late April, as well as state and Nationals in July.

I mounted a customer's deer head last night! One down, four more to go. Here's a (somewhat dark) picture of it..