The Turtleback Harlequin, Part Three

PART THREE: PAINTING THE HEN

This article is part of a 3-part series.

Read Part 1 of The Turtleback Harlequin here

Read Part 2 of The Turtleback Harlequin here

As promised, in this third part of the “Turtleback Harlequin” series, we get to paint a hen using the traditional “wet-on-wet” painting technique used even today throughout the Chesapeake region. Back in the early 1900s, these humpback warriors had very little detail painted on them. Many decoy makers used the most basic block-painting methods on the drakes, while only some got a little creative with the hens. They learned that by varying the pressure on the brush as they dragged it along the back, they could make what  resembled a mottled feather pattern that spruced up the block. This technique was refined by factory  decoy makers such as those in the Jobes family and is still used today by them and others. Pat Vincen-ti, in Churchville, Maryland, is a current factory  maker and has an excellent video on YouTube in which he demonstrates making a drake gadwall  using this highly refined painting method. In his  video, he uses oil-based enamel sign painter’s (Ronan) paints on his decoys and very rapidly lays in the wet patterns over the wet base colors. This  allows him to blot and blend in feather patterns that mimic the natural patterns we see on the backs of ducks.

Upon examining some early decoys from the region, I observed that the blotting pattern was  created in several ways—either applied over the dried base coat or carefully blotted into wet paint without dragging the brush. Other makers clearly dragged the brush as they blotted, as you can see the blending of colors. Decoy makers back in the early 1900s were making and painting decoys by the dozens, so they most likely worked in the paint patterns as quickly as possible, applying wet paint over and into wet paint. Let’s look at two early ex-amples. Captain John Glenn (1872-1954) of Rock Hall, Maryland, was known for his well-carved and finely painted decoys. It is said he used thick, bold paint to create realism in his blocks. He began making decoys around 1916, and his decoys became so popular that, in 1929, he hired August George Heinefield (1883-1952), a local carpenter, to work with him making rigs for other hunters. Together, they became the most revered and prolific carvers around Rock Hall.

For this demonstration, I will move away from the oil-based paints we used to paint the harlequin drake and use liquid Golden Acrylics and an acryl-ic-drying extender to get much of the same results. Acrylics don’t use mineral spirits or other some-what harsh solvents that some may find irritating to breathe in their workspace. Although I love the flat-ness of the Parker or Ronan oils and how they develop a pleasant patina over time, I can feel a slight irritation in my throat when I work with them due to the mineral spirits solvent. Acrylics are much saf-er (lacking harsh solvents) and can be forced to dry using a hair dryer—allowing you to speed up your paint project when you need to. However, acrylics can often dry too quickly, do not blend on the proj-ect like oils do, and have a plastic look and feel to them once dried. There isn’t a whole lot that can be done about the look and feel; however, by using a drying extender when mixing acrylics, we can cer-tainly blend with them on the decoy much easier, and we can still force the drying process using a hair dryer. So, let’s get started.

GOLDEN MATTE ACRYLIC PAINTS

• Titanium white
• Carbon black
• Raw sienna
• Payne’s gray
• Raw umber
• Burnt umber
• Burnt sienna
• Van Dyke brown

PAINTBRUSHES

• #4 coarse bristle fan
• #16 Golden Taklon round
• #6 Golden Taklon round
• #8 Golden Taklon flat
• #18 Golden Taklon flat
• #9 nylon wedge stipple

OTHER MATERIALS

• Golden Acrylic Retarder
• Black acrylic gesso
• Jansen Art Cork Sealer
• Krylon 1311 Clear Matte Finish
• White and lead pencils
• 120-grit sandpaper
• 3/32″ drill bit and power drill
• E6000 glue
• Small hammer
• Palette knife
• 3/4″ brass ring
• 1/2″ fence staple
• Approximately 4-ounce lead ballast weight
• (2) 1-1/4″ ringed underlayment nails
• (2) 1-1/4″ brass trim nails
• Large rubber bands or elastic strap

1. At the end of our harlequin drake paint project, we had one of these unpainted, raw cedar blocks remaining. We will prep this block the same way as we did the drake.

2. About 1 1/2″ back and 1/2″ up from the neck seam, I place a small pencil mark on each side of the neck. I check the placement by looking at the front of the decoy to ensure symmetry.

3. Using a 3/32″ drill bit and electric drill, I drill a pilot hole through the neck and into the body about an inch deep.

4. I insert a 1 1/4″ ringed underlayment nail into each pilot hole and hammer it in using a small tack hammer.

5. I countersink the nails so they lie below the surface of the neck/wood.

6. I mix equal parts of a thick acrylic medium—in this case, Jansen Art Cork Sealer—and black gesso together to seal the entire decoy. I water down the first coat to a thin paint and paint the block, letting it dry well.

7. Once the first coat is dry, I lightly sand the decoy with 120-grit sandpaper and then paint the bird once again with a full-strength coat of the sealer/gesso mix.

8. After this coat is dry, I once again sand the entire decoy lightly to knock off any raised grain.

9. Using about quarter-sized blobs of raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, and white, I mix the body paint.

10. I use a small palette knife to blend the colors to make a milk-chocolate brown. Adjust the lightness using the white.

11. Paint the entire decoy with this paint mix. You can use a hair dryer to speed up the drying time.

12. Using my white pencil, I make a small mark on each side on the edge of the tail, about three inches back from the corner/tip of the tail.

13. On top of the tail, using the white pencil again, I mark a shallow V that will define the tail feathers.

14. Using Van Dyke brown paint, I fill in the top of the tail and dry it with the hair dryer. If you don’t have Van Dyke brown, mix some black into raw umber to get a nearly black brown.

15. Using the white pencil, I draw in the general shape in which I will do the wet-on-wet painting. This shape is basically a heart. It is easier to make this shape symmetrical by drawing a center line down the middle of the back. I initially had the shape higher on the back, but then extended it closer to the tail.

16. This is what the shape looks like from the side. I basically brought it down to the side chine line.

17. Once again, using the raw sienna, white, burnt umber, and raw umber, I mix a large amount of the chocolate brown, trying to match the original brown in which I painted the body. I’ll add about ½ teaspoon of the acrylic retarder to the paint and mix it thoroughly.

18. I take about half of this paint blend and transfer it to another disposable plate. I then mix about the same amount of raw umber and some of the acrylic retarder on another plate. I place the unused portion of the chocolate-brown mix into a small, sealable container to save for later.

19. Before trying to paint the decoy, I suggest practicing the brush pattern on the back of some old, used plates. This will reveal what the paint blends will look like and help you decide whether you want to pull and blend the mix together or try to dab the pattern in with little to no blending. I start by working a little of the raw-umber mix into the bristles of my #4 fan brush, taking care not to pick up too much paint.

20. Now, on the back of a plate, I dab a row, varying my pressure on the brush. In another row, I dab and pull at the same time. This will blend the paints too much and make mud of the two browns, since the tones are not that different.

21. During this pattern experiment, I decided the chocolate brown was not light enough, so I added some more white to the brown.

22. I then made a few practice runs on another plate to figure out what I liked. I thought the darker raw umber laid on top of the light looked pretty good, but since a Harlequin hen has almost all the same brown everywhere, I decided to combine all three tones of brown to get my feather pattern.

23. To start on the decoy, I paint in the chocolate body color in the heart shape I drew on the back. The acrylic retarder will keep the paint wet through this process.

24. I clean off the fan brush, load it with the lighter mix, and dab in from the front of the decoy, working toward the back along the lines I drew. I then clean the brush again, load it with the darker raw umber, and dab that in between the light dabs.

25. After doing the same process on the other side, I run a row up the center of the back from the tail to the neck, reversing the brush pattern.

26. Once the paint pattern looks the way you want it, you can force the mix to dry quickly using your hair dryer.

27. Using the white pencil, I draw in where I will place my primary feathers. I check the symmetry, looking at the decoy from the tail end as well as the top.

28. Back in the day, decoy makers following this style used basic streaks of paint in the general location and shape of the bird’s primary feathers. I am going to use white, the retarder, and Van Dyke brown for the primaries. I combine a light brown with Van Dyke brown and white and then load the small, flat brush with the clear retarder and add it to the mix.

29. Using the edge of the brush, I lay in the primary feather as pictured using the light paint mix.

30. I then lay in the rest of the primaries on this side, shortening each one a bit more as I go along.

31. I lay the mix of just the retarder and the Van Dyke brown over top of the lighter, wet paint. This is repeated over the row of primary feathers. You can do this several times to define the feathers in the way you like best.

32. This is repeated on the other side. This whole process is traditionally done very quickly. These decoys were tools—not competition or show pieces—so these feathers are just supposed to resemble the primaries on the back of a duck.

33. While the primaries are still wet, I lay a wide brushstroke over their ends to pull them together in what will serve as the wing’s secondaries. I use the wide, flat brush for this, and as with the primaries, I start with the lighter paint.

34. Switching back to the smaller flat brush and the Van Dyke brown, I lay the secondaries into the lighter paint. Use the hair dryer to dry the paint once you get the secondaries looking the way you want.

35. Now, pull out that excess chocolate-brown body paint and touch up all the lines along the wings and any other places that may have gotten paint smudges on them.

36. Use the hair dryer to dry the paint. It is all starting to come together.

37. On the bottom of the block, using my white pencil, I draw a large oval to serve as the belly outline. Look at the belly from the front and back to make sure your outline is fairly symmetrical.

38. I tone down a decent amount of white using a touch of raw umber. Paint the belly with this mix and save the excess for the face details.

39. Look back at part two of this demonstration, in which I used an old, worn-out brush to stipple the black and white in the drake’s head. I use this same brush for laying the face patterns on this hen. It is about a 1/2″ angled flat brush that has the bristles smashed down. Using the off-white we previously made, I begin laying in some speckles around each side of the bill.

40. This is what the face pattern looks like on a hen. There is a bolder spot below the eye and another above the eye. There is also a round spot about 3/4″ behind the eye.

41. Now, blot in just a bit of pure white above and below the eye. Then, make the spot behind the eye fairly white. Repeat on the other side of the head.

42. Look at the head from the top to make sure the pattern on both sides of the head is positioned the same. If it is off on one side, you should still have some of the chocolate-brown mix to cover over the white, and then you can repaint everything.

43. Using a small, round brush, I paint the inside of each eye with burnt sienna.

44. I use a Q-tip dabbed in black paint to add pupils to the eyes. You can also use the flat end of a round paint brush if it is the correct size.

45. Mix a medium-dark blue-gray for the bill using Payne’s gray, a touch of white, and a touch of raw umber.

46. Paint the bill using this blue-gray mix. Using the hair dryer between coats, I like to apply two to three coats of paint to increase the thickness, since the paint on the bill usually gets lots of wear.

47. This completes the brush-work. I set the paint and make sure it is dry all over with my hair dryer. I then let the decoy sit for a few days to ensure all the paint has had ample time to dry.

48. After the decoy has set for a few days, I seal the paint using several coats of Krylon 1311 Clear Matte Finish as a final varnish. Let this dry for a few days before floating the decoy.

49. As I did with the drake in the previous part of this demonstration, I attach the line tie using a 3/4″ brass ring and a galvanized fence staple driven into the front of the decoy. This is hammered in where the flat bottom starts to rise into the breast along the center line of the decoy.

50. It is time to float this block. I fill my deep sink with water and plan to use a disposable elastic tourniquet (or large rubber band) to attach a couple of the different sizes of lead weights we made previously.

51. As the sink fills, I tie the elastic band around the decoy using a double overhand knot. If using large rubber bands, simply slide them over the body around the middle.

52. I slide one of the weights under the band along the center line of the decoy near the back. The decoy will float better in the rough if the weight is closer to the back of the block, making it slightly tail heavy.

53. I cut about 3/8″ off one of the weights to lighten it up some. I started with this weight to see if it would flip the decoy; it did, but slowly. I repositioned the weight slightly forward to get the tail a bit out of the water and slightly off center to level out the decoy. This helped the bird to flip a bit faster. With some decoys, you may have to pull the weight a good bit off center to make it float level when looking at it from the front.

54. Using a pencil, I mark the weight’s final location on the bottom.

55. Using a 3/32″-1/8″ drill bit and electric drill, I drill a pilot hole at each end of the weight at an angle. Once the nails are inserted, the angle will keep the weight from getting pulled out.

56. I’m going to use two of these brass 1 1/4″ nails to attach the ballast weight, but the same ring-shank nails we used earlier to secure the head would also work fine.

57. I place a thin bead of E6000 glue on the bottom of the weight and position it on the bottom of the decoy where I marked its location. Hammer in the nails using a small hammer, and then wipe off any excess glue to neaten things up.

58. This young gal is ready to hunt with her two rigmates.