I love birds and I love carving them, they are a great relief from all the articulating that I do with most of my work. I like to keep it simple - basically a log with a branch stuck into it. The timber is usually local and I keep the bark on if possiible to suggest feathers.

Rocking chickens are by far the most popular of all the birds I make. By retaining as much of the log as possible, a spherical broody chicken shape is formed with fantastic grain / feathering effects. On timber with less exciting grain I attack the timber with a broad range of implements to distress the surface and try combinations of scraffito and fillers. They have deep red combs and wattles and slightly oversized beaks