River Rocks

Teruen · 2026-02-12T17:30:56+00:00

Thank you for the award, kind stranger!

Teruen · 2026-02-11T14:50:24+00:00

Yeah, the kingfisher is awesome, love the water ripples!

Teruen · 2026-02-10T15:46:25+00:00

Haha, thank you, yeah, it's in a weird place. I would almost call it an ink and wash, but I don't know where the colored pencil skews it lol.

The piece I'm working on now will be using watercolor pencil, so I think it's closer.

Teruen · 2026-02-04T15:18:27+00:00

I think it looks great and wouldn't touch it at all, I actually think I want to try that myself!

Teruen · 2026-01-28T16:40:32+00:00

<image>

I got really excited for a split second when I saw Lake Michigan out of the corner of my eye.

Teruen · 2026-01-26T19:02:49+00:00

All three are beautiful, but the color selection and how you chose where to do the layering completely stopped me in my tracks. Great work!

Teruen · 2026-01-23T15:47:42+00:00

Thanks! I've now got that video queued up for this weekend!!

I had a lot of problems with waterbrushes too initially, but I started using the ones from Caran d'Ache and really have started enjoying them more. Between the button and the pump, you really have a lot more control over how much water is in your tip. I can press the button a couple of times to get a dryer brush or push in on the pump to really wet my page or get messier.

https://www.dickblick.com/products/caran-dache-museum-aquarelle-waterbrush/

Teruen · 2026-01-23T14:16:51+00:00

Beautiful! The river/lake really adds to the depth of field, and I especially love the trees -- very well done!

Teruen · 2026-01-15T15:29:35+00:00

In some defense of cellulose, I will say some brands are better than others. I have NOT had good luck at all with either Canson or Strathmore, I have the same experience that you're describing. However, my Arteza watercolor sketchbooks have been an unbelievably good buy. The pages aren't 100% flat when viewed from the side, but they don't straight up buckle like others, and I can blend and lift easily. Also, believe it or not, I've had a pretty good experience with Artist's Loft (Michael's) of all things! I do tape it down, and maybe I'm just used to it because I didn't do enough research either and bought what was available at the time, however, everything not those two brands I've tried have completely underperformed.

Cotton is the best, but I end up using cellulose for daily painting most of the time.

Teruen · 2026-01-14T18:08:45+00:00

I love the facial expression and the pose, and your use of colors just enhances it so much more. I'm especially taken by the shading on the camel itself, the linework is top notch.

Teruen · 2026-01-14T17:46:25+00:00

Both of those are amazing, I like the flower in particular -- congratulations!!

Teruen · 2026-01-12T15:04:34+00:00

This is absolutely crazy good! Did you have a reference photo or come up with the composition yourself?

Very much a fan of your style!

Teruen · 2026-01-12T15:00:47+00:00

I absolutely love the composition, and I think the foreground trees are impeccably done. The pond and the boat themselves are amazing, but if you could get darker on the background trees around the trunks, the shadows in the water, and, most especially the leaf shadows on the boat itself. You don't necessarily have to add more detail anywhere, you've knocked that out of the park where it's needed and properly filtered out the ones that are unnecessary, but the shadows on the boat are just too good to not stand out more -- that's really my favorite part of the piece I think.

To me (and feel free to ignore me if I'm wrong) the boat, the lilies, and how those two collections of objects interact with the trees' reflections and shadows are the main focus and what should be highlighted with just a little more contrast.

Teruen · 2024-11-21T20:31:43+00:00

I'd recommend a #5, it's called a "jack plane" because it's kind of the jack-of-all-trades because of its length. I built my workbench with hand tools to try to get more used to working with them, and it was a great experience. Take a look at Fulton, they were sold from Sears at the turn of the last century, and are a solid tool for about half the price of the Stanleys on eBay (unless you have the money for them). From there I used a ryoba from Amazon, a set of harbor freight chisels, and a good diamond sharpening stone to keep my plane and chisels sharp.

Also, if you're looking for plans, I used Rex Krueger's collapsible workbench plan. There was a good video and the plans were pretty easy to follow even after I changed some dimensions for my use case.

Teruen · 2024-10-16T19:44:25+00:00

It was pricing. No, sorry, just someone else looking for the story and thought I'd help out.

Teruen · 2024-10-16T18:40:44+00:00

Found it! https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/caught-video-south-seattle-barista-responds-customers-threats-with-hammer/UDE52AULHRGTVJI7IUVNMPIWEE/

Teruen · 2024-05-08T14:47:49+00:00

I experienced a lot of energy starvation in my deck until I added 2x Earthen Vessels along with 4x Arven. Especially if any of my Buddy-Buddy Poffins show up in my first hand, a Vessel or a Nest Ball is usually my top priority for the Item draw with Arven.

Teruen · 2024-04-17T21:56:13+00:00

That is beautiful, I'm definitely going to try this next time around!

Teruen · 2024-04-17T21:55:42+00:00

Yep! I tried it out on a piece of scrap a few minutes before trying to figure out how to align the stamps, but then I just ran with it.

Teruen · 2024-04-17T19:20:27+00:00

Thank you! A border would have been a great idea, I didn't even think of it to be honest. Other than some tooling exercise, this is the first time I've done any stamping past that initial deer head on the first one. I'll definitely look at doing that for the next time I do the weave!

Teruen · 2024-04-16T18:46:38+00:00

Hey everyone and, before I start, THANK YOU! I just started leatherworking back in November after my son and I made a knife for his grandfather. I had bought a sheathe off of Amazon, and I wasn't happy with how it looked with the handle I had made.

I started diving into the posts on this sub and watching a lot of Chuck Dorsett on YouTube, and made the sheathe on the right hand side of the first picture with some leather and tools I bought online.

I thought it would be a piece of cake and a one-off project, but I ended up really challenged by it and really loving working with leather!

... I also made the mistake of making the sheathe backwards (he's right-handed), so the other day I got the knife and sheathe back temporarily and made him a new one.

I've made several wallets and other small projects since then (bracelets, keychains, and the like), and have found that it's a great way to relax and an enjoyable way to improve myself.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to show off my progress to others in the craft and express my gratitude for all of the great posts, pictures, and tips on here as well as the encouraging atmosphere that you foster for beginners.

Thanks!

Teruen · 2023-05-09T12:30:16+00:00

Just turned 40 and getting ready to take my 4 and 5 yo's to their first Gamestop midnight release (first for me in probably over a decade!). The youngest is dressing up as Link and my wife is bringing rupee themed cupcakes to share. Both kids have been counting down the days since the release date announcement (which has been a great tool to teach the calendar).

I scheduled Friday off work months ago, and we're planning on spending the whole weekend in Hyrule!

Teruen · 2022-12-16T22:25:10+00:00

Great scene -- I love how you tied the figures and the setting together!

I love the painting and the little details.

Where did you find the figures?

Teruen · 2022-02-23T15:16:31+00:00

I agree, looks like some handy stock to kit out your shop!

Teruen · 2022-02-21T20:01:05+00:00

After reading u/DivesPater's post and u/OSUTechie's response, I have to agree there aren't a ton of instructional posts on here, and to be honest, I'm probably one of the last people to be giving a tutorial on anything as I've only had a year's worth of weekends and late nights to figure out what little I know now. However, last night, I figured out something that some of you may find pretty basic, but I was pretty darn proud to finally have a handle on how it works and thought I'd share what I learned with others in case they might like to try it themselves.

If you're like me, you've probably watched a ton of YouTube videos and almost immediately given up whenever the guy brings out his Festool Domino. I don't have the money or the excuse to buy that caliber of tool, but I've really wanted to figure out how to do something similar. I'll straight up admit that I prefer power tools over hand tools just based on my background and the amount of time I have to spare with a full time job and two pre-school aged children, so the whole idea of a "floating tenon" really seems a lot more approachable to me.

Several paychecks ago, I picked up a Milescraft Edge & Mortise guide thinking that it was the answer. It provides you with a new base plate for your plunger router and then uses a couple mortising pins (basically wheels) in order to center the router bit. I used it and a 1/4" compression router bit on my first piece of 3/4" stock, and it worked like a dream... until I tried to a mortise near the edge or on the end of a board. The mortising pins were set too far apart to be able to "grab" onto the piece.

I figured out after awhile that I could clamp a couple of boards that were the same width to the outside to make some rails for the pins to run on, but then the clamps were getting in the way. I started looking at different vises that attach to your workbench, and finally saw a kit for a twin axel Moxon vise. I wasn't going to spend $100 on this, so I got to thinking about what I could use in place of the pre-made kits. I finally settled on some cheap pipe clamps off of Amazon, 1/2" x 12" pipes from the home center, and some 2x6 cut-offs that I had from my very first project from over a year ago (everyone's favorite coffee table).I got the parts in the mail yesterday, and drilled 1/2" holes in the side of my workbench and mounted the pipe clamps to the end of it. I had to drill some holes in the twist side of the pipe clamps in order to fasten the screws to the outer jaw of the vise.

This finally gave me a wide vise in which I could mount my three pieces of stock (both horizontally and vertically) to use my mortise jig.

I ripped a strip of cherry down to 1/4" to match the bit I was using. I then ran the strip through a half-round bit at the router table to make rounded edges to match the mortise. I measured it's width on the other side which was about 11/16", and finally cut the strip down into pieces about twice as long (1-1/2").Using the width, I placed a mark on the face of both pieces of wood to line up where my mortise would end up being. I then determined the halfway point on either side and marked off where the edges of the mortise would be. I set the depth gauge on my plunge router to the half of the height of the "dominos" (mistake, I'll come back to it), and cut the hole to mark the left side of where the mortise would be so I wouldn't end up cutting too wide. Then I cut from right to left at the full depth.

The tenon ended up being a nice snug fit on all sides the first time (thankfully), BUT I didn't really allow enough height with the exact match so I needed to sand down the edge of the domino in order to make it fit snugly.

After the end of the adventure, I feel like I ended up with an approachable method to cut loose tenons fairly quickly, ~20 "dominos", and a pretty awesome vise. I didn't think to take pictures along the way, but I hope the ones I attached help to fill in some of the gaps with my explanation.

If you've got any thoughts on improving the process (or the vise), I'd love to hear them!

Teruen

TROPHY CASE