Scrimshaw on eco-friendly materials. Choose from a variety of accessories, create your own scrimshaw with our easy to use templates, or browse our store for inspiration! Custom orders available. Links below bring you to our Etsy store.
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We know a little about Liz Fisher, a scrimshaw artist that worked at a shop in the Quincy Marketplace in Boston around 1984. Actually that’s all we know about her. Wonderful design, great expression. Reminds me a little of the comic book art from that era: not overly detailed yet expressive – just enough stippling to create shadows – that’s a talent.
The owner of the knife would like to get back in contact with her. If you know her whereabouts and if she’s still creating art of any type, please feel free to comment in the section below!
I thought about this years ago and it’s popped into my head every so often since. I finally tracked down the original art after a few hours of searching. One benefit of being unemployed is more time, if used wisely. I eschewed FB and sought creative inspirations for the last couple of months. After purchasing the image, I found it just didn’t work, so I based this on the artwork instead. Happy to have given some money to the artist (who is on iStock).
I started with the outlines of the leaves readjusted to fit on a full (the high C or low A on the piano keyboard) piano key. Once they were scrimshawed, I carefully scrimmed over the top and (mostly) within the lines using a special tattoo needle that creates extremely fine lines. In case you’re interested in experimenting, it’s a cluster of needles used mainly for shading (see https://amzn.to/3ioq308) I was able to fit the needlecluster from the cartridge into a pen tip that will retract most of the time, so I have avoided unintentional micro-tattoos. Since I’m using a slightly softer material than ivory, it was a good time saver: I’m working full time again and don’t have the hours to spend as I used to, just one or two a night. That being said it still took me several days to scribe the cross-hatching and fill all the leaves with India ink pigment.
Overall I like the way it came out. I may experiment with some smaller piano key “heads” and “tails”, but I think there will be fewer leaves: making them smaller would turn my scrimshaw into “screamshaw”. I guess that would be appropriate for October.
From Alaska comes a nice clean walrus tusk scrimshawed in the late 1980’s to early 1990 depicting a fishing trawler with a leaping fish. Nicely done, wonderful balance of scrimshaw to ivory, not heavily detailed or shaded. The signature is E.Okleasik and was given to the owner’s grandfather from a gentleman that moved to Alaska in the 1950’s.
The owners would love to know more about the artist, and are curious if it is real ivory, which I believe it is by the looks of the crazing and the ink working its way underneath the cracks. The base is sealed, but you can see the scribe lines of the scrimshaw near it, definitely not molded.
Does anyone know the artist E. Okleasik or have any information on them? Write your comments below, we’d love to see more of their work.
A tie-tack with an artist’s mark of the letter S with a harpoon is the latest head scratcher brought to my attention. Appears to be ivory, possibly walrus, though it is missing the “tapioca” grain that often appears on the ivory from that species, I’m just basing my assumption on the creamy color. It could well be mammoth, whale, elephant or other ivory. I like the artist mark, its simplicity and the integration of the harpoon and rope makes it quite memorable.
Anyone familiar with the artist or the mark? Please feel free to write your comments below.
