Posts tagged 1.5 millionth Martin

Choosing images for the fret markers is the fun stuff. Poring over Leonardo’s notebooks, studying his sketches, trying to dissect his soul. For the first marker I chose his (probable) self portrait as an old man. I’ve drawn hundreds of faces, likely thousands, but at most a handful from another artist’s drawing. Da Vinci worked a lot in fine lines of chalk or crayon, along with pen, ink, and white highlights. For scrimshaw I work mostly with stippled dots and line, in black. So translating his style to mine took some effort. At this point I’m really feeling a powerful sense of communion with the master.

Like the gentleman I pretend to be, I start with a deep look into the eyes, take in the face, then move down the neck…

Bob Hergert, on behalf of Martin Guitar.

When I work a smaller piece, I attach it to a brass sheet with sealing wax. Here is the bridge. I first taped the back with masking tape for easy removal from the wax.

Next, I tape the original drawing to the surface of the ivory:

Now I use my scribe to poke through the drawing, resulting in the dotted outline you see here. Though this technique seems simple, it isn’t. Sensing the right amount of pressure to ensure the dots are neither too shallow nor too deep takes lots of practice. Saving time at this stage allows me to devote more time later to the finishing touches. On a small piece like this, every dot after the initial outline IS a finishing touch (below).

Click here to see the rest of this portrait on Flickr.

Bob Hergert, on behalf of Martin Guitar.

Bob Hergert has been a scrimshaw artist for over 30 years. He came naturally into this medium of incising ivory with intricate designs. He had drawn in pen and ink since the age of 10, eventually creating works in the stippled technique (images made up of thousands of dots). A jeweler asked him to work on some pendant pieces he’d made from fossilized ivory. It was a perfect match. Bob could achieve a level of detail impossible with the quill pens he used in his drawing.

Years of dedication to the difficult medium paid off. His work made the covers of trade magazines. Most of the recent books on scrimshaw also feature him and his work. He was even made a character in two of Tom Clancy’s Net Force series novels.

Eventually his unusual artform led him to meet knifemakers, cuestick makers, and luthiers. He would say this suited him perfectly, for the work he created he could also play with. His artworks embellish a wide variety of objects: jewelry, funiture, knives, fountain pens, cuesticks and cueballs, and of course, guitars.

Much of the work on musical instruments is done on truss rod covers, knobs on electric guitars, and complete fretboards. He has worked on a number of guitars made by Eric Galletta, who worked with Wayne Charvel. Their clients include The Allman Brothers Band and the Beach Boys. Eric provided Bob with introductions to many professionals in the music business, including the luthier Harvey Leach.

This fateful meeting has led to the collaboration of the two on Martin Guitars’ 1,500,000th guitar. Harvey Leach is doing the inlay that Bob will embellish with his intricate scrimshaw.

Much more information on the artist can be found at www.scrimshander.com and www.bobhergert.com.

The background is combined with Mona Lisa:

Click here to see how the rest of the headstock pieces combine to look like this:

Remember what our original rendering of the Mona Lisa headstock looked like? Not bad, eh?

Now she is ready for Bob to work his scrimshaw magic!

- Harvey Leach, on behalf of Martin Guitar

The valley below the rocks is cut from a combination of different colors of Corian , green acrylic and Spiny Oyster:

Once again the inlay flipped upside down so you can see how the colors recreate the details of the background while blending together to keep some of the sfumato effect of the painting:

- Harvey Leach, on behalf of Martin Guitar