two knives and a whole lot of paint

So recently I had been playing around with one of the designs out of my book. The first one I carved, shown on the right was too happy for the design so I put him off to the side and started a new one. This one's expression matched up more with the design so now I have two knives and both are ready to paint.


At this point I make the mistake of sowing both to my friend and fellow carve Tony Harris. He then suggest instead of me painting both the same why not paint one as a Helvie knife made with a Pakkawood. If you have ever seen these, they are a multi color handle so I wondered if I could even do this. I paint with extremely watered down color and the knives were carved in bass wood. Would the colors run or bleed together? So I took out a scrap piece of wood and did some test and unfortunately this was possible. When it was first painted it seemed to be missing something so I got out my pens and added some lines between the colors and then applied to finish. Every step I could hear Tony's voice, "test it first", and I did and it worked out just fine. Yet all the way through the process I kept wondering why did I do this and in the end I was glad I did.

as always, 

Good night and May God bless