jacques herbst
Elite Cafe Member
here is my last practice plate.
practice plate
- Thread starter jacques herbst
- Start date
Martin Strolz
Elite Cafe Member
Hi Jaques,
Your plate seems to be cut quite well, the shading too is cut good also. But there are mistakes in the layout of the ornament, the leaves etc. My opinion is, that you just need advice and practice regarding layout and design. So don’t waste your time engraving- more drawing is what you should do!
Best regards
Martin
Your plate seems to be cut quite well, the shading too is cut good also. But there are mistakes in the layout of the ornament, the leaves etc. My opinion is, that you just need advice and practice regarding layout and design. So don’t waste your time engraving- more drawing is what you should do!
Best regards
Martin
I agree with Martin. Your cuts look very clean. You are not really that far off with the design errors either though. I have been following your progress since you began posting on some of the other forums. You are really making excellent progress considering you have only been at this such a short time. Keep up the good work and keep posting. 
Dmitry Martinov
Elite Cafe Member
jacques! what is the size of plate?
Brian Hochstrat
Elite Cafe Member
Jacques, Ron Smith's book on scroll design would be helpful in advancing your design work. One easy thing you can fix, is your crosshatching that runs into the upper fold of your leaves, it should start light but end somewhat heavy. This adds more tone variation, it gives the illusion of a cavity under the leaf fold. Also, you can study other peoples shading, seeing how others handle shading different leaves is a big help until you can work it out on your own to get the effects you want. Other than that I can see you have the right idea and just need time and practice. Best Regards, Brian
pilkguns
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Overall I would say the pattern looks good. Fantastic maybe for your skill level. But as Martin and others said there are some issues. Here are some specifics points by the numbers.
BACKBONE. 1 and 2 you have the backbone or spine of the scroll clearly defined and and an equal width apart from incoming leaves or shade lines. Same thing for backbone just above 9. However, at 3 and 4 and 10, the back is so narrow from shading, or poor cutting that it basically goes away and you lose the clear definition of what is scroll and what is background. Particulary so at 3.
BALANCE You should strive to have an equal spacing between the background and the pattern. Basically you want equal sizing of each background throughout the pattern. Does’nt matter what size , as long as the any given black area is roughly the same size as any other black area, or gradually diminishing as it goes around the scroll and the leaves become smaller. Overall this pattern is pretty good, but I would say the black at 7, 8 and just above 2 is much smaller than the rest of the blacks. I probably would have left out the leaf between 7 and 8 and left the leaf out at 9 entirely to give a more balance background. Probably would have left out the leaf that is touching the 2 as well.
SCROLL FLOW. Some things maybe were drawn better and went astray in the cutting. That happens to all of us but less and less as you get more chips on the floor. But to this, the flow of the scroll originating at 0 and going through 5 is fine. But the scroll that is marked 10, 7,8,9 is a little awkward in that it seems to be originated about at 3, and this not really a place that a scroll would originate from. For sure it does not flow smoothly from the 0-5 scroll. Really this same 10,7,8,9 scroll should originate right back at 0 and flow invisibly under the first scroll until it would emerge naturally about half way between 2 and 3. Just about where the bottom of the top leaf is there.
Another thing I notice is that you have a lot of the leaves cutting into the backbone of the next rotation of the scroll. I don’t know whether this was intentional part of the design or mistake in the cutting not leaving enough room as you cut the interior leaves. It could be either. Obviosly if you meant it to be then so be it, it looks fine. ( I personally don’t like it, but if you are doing it consistently throughout the pattern, and you did, then it is technically correct, to hell with my opinion!). If you did’nt well you learned for next time, how much room you need to swing that graver and stay out of the next rotation of the scroll.
Don’t take the criticism hard, you have a lot of stuff going right here, and I thought it would be good to give you a harder push in the areas you can improve on.
Go do us another one now.
Best,
Scott
BACKBONE. 1 and 2 you have the backbone or spine of the scroll clearly defined and and an equal width apart from incoming leaves or shade lines. Same thing for backbone just above 9. However, at 3 and 4 and 10, the back is so narrow from shading, or poor cutting that it basically goes away and you lose the clear definition of what is scroll and what is background. Particulary so at 3.
BALANCE You should strive to have an equal spacing between the background and the pattern. Basically you want equal sizing of each background throughout the pattern. Does’nt matter what size , as long as the any given black area is roughly the same size as any other black area, or gradually diminishing as it goes around the scroll and the leaves become smaller. Overall this pattern is pretty good, but I would say the black at 7, 8 and just above 2 is much smaller than the rest of the blacks. I probably would have left out the leaf between 7 and 8 and left the leaf out at 9 entirely to give a more balance background. Probably would have left out the leaf that is touching the 2 as well.
SCROLL FLOW. Some things maybe were drawn better and went astray in the cutting. That happens to all of us but less and less as you get more chips on the floor. But to this, the flow of the scroll originating at 0 and going through 5 is fine. But the scroll that is marked 10, 7,8,9 is a little awkward in that it seems to be originated about at 3, and this not really a place that a scroll would originate from. For sure it does not flow smoothly from the 0-5 scroll. Really this same 10,7,8,9 scroll should originate right back at 0 and flow invisibly under the first scroll until it would emerge naturally about half way between 2 and 3. Just about where the bottom of the top leaf is there.
Another thing I notice is that you have a lot of the leaves cutting into the backbone of the next rotation of the scroll. I don’t know whether this was intentional part of the design or mistake in the cutting not leaving enough room as you cut the interior leaves. It could be either. Obviosly if you meant it to be then so be it, it looks fine. ( I personally don’t like it, but if you are doing it consistently throughout the pattern, and you did, then it is technically correct, to hell with my opinion!). If you did’nt well you learned for next time, how much room you need to swing that graver and stay out of the next rotation of the scroll.
Don’t take the criticism hard, you have a lot of stuff going right here, and I thought it would be good to give you a harder push in the areas you can improve on.
Go do us another one now.
Best,
Scott
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Marcus Hunt
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
I agree with Scott 100%. Jacques, this critique is very useful; take it on board for next time and keep on practising.
Scott, how did you superimpose the numbers for the critique? Its a very useful tool.
Scott, how did you superimpose the numbers for the critique? Its a very useful tool.
pilkguns
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Marcus, I did it in Photoshop, but any photoediting program should be able to add text I would think.
jacques herbst
Elite Cafe Member
thank you scott and others who commented.i don't take useful critique hard and are grateful for your time.i was not to happy with the hole engraving and did not want to post the photo of it but my wife liked it and sed i should so i did and glad for all the help i received. o and the size is 32/65 mm dmitry.
o and the size is 32/65 mm dmitry.
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Kerry Bogan
Member
Scott that's the type of constructive criticism we all need in order to get better.
Kerry
Kerry
Thank you Scott, this critique is very useful for all of us who are trying to master scrolls. It is detailing and shows which is right and wrong. It is not only for Jacques, I read this critique very carefuly and learned a lot from it. I posted my practice plate a month a go expecting a critique like scott's, but I got three responses and didn't tell me much. I would suggest to master engravers in the the engraving community (The Engraver's Cafe) to spend few minutes to their young followers.
Thank you, Tez.
Thank you, Tez.
pilkguns
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Tez,
I just went back looking for your previous post/practice plate. I remembered it when I saw it. To be honest, there is not much there to criticize or comment on. Your scroll is round and the shading is good. Yea, some things are little off, here and there, but thats just a matter of tool control that comes with practice.
Of course, you only have one real scroll so there is not much chance for some other errrors like in this last pattern to appear. And really, it is very BIG in comparison to most scrolls cut in real life. which is not your fault but it is easier to not exaggerate some areas like shading when yuo are so big. Please post something you have done recently, maybe somthing with multiple scrolls or orgination points that will give us a little more to "chew on" so to speak. try to keep your scrolls size down under a quarter or maybe a nickel .
I just went back looking for your previous post/practice plate. I remembered it when I saw it. To be honest, there is not much there to criticize or comment on. Your scroll is round and the shading is good. Yea, some things are little off, here and there, but thats just a matter of tool control that comes with practice.
Of course, you only have one real scroll so there is not much chance for some other errrors like in this last pattern to appear. And really, it is very BIG in comparison to most scrolls cut in real life. which is not your fault but it is easier to not exaggerate some areas like shading when yuo are so big. Please post something you have done recently, maybe somthing with multiple scrolls or orgination points that will give us a little more to "chew on" so to speak. try to keep your scrolls size down under a quarter or maybe a nickel .
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