Leucistic and Black Ravens - The Engraved Clay Process by Dave Somers

Dave Somers is an artist who creates beautiful clay engravings from his original sketches and photographs. He does this using a computer, Adobe Photoshop software, and a laser cutter. His engravings can be seen at local craft fairs and at Artworks Gallery in Langley, WA. Dave loves to share the lengthy process he goes through to create his unique works of art.
 
Dave Describes his Process
After I choose the photo I want to engrave, I use various tools in Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Photo to strip the image of color and unwanted details that do not work well when engraving. The result is a simple black-and-white image. Then I use a variety of tools to further refine the image to a black-and-white line drawing suitable for my engraving process. This editing stage requires the most time and effort in the whole creative process.
 
Once I have the image as I want it, I take it to my big CO2 laser cutter and use the laser to recreate the line art on a commercial product called Claybord. The laser ablates (removes) the thin layer of Kaolin Clay on the top of the board, exposing the dark Masonite layer below. Watching it run is quite boring, like watching a slow dot matrix printer in operation, but the machine requires constant monitoring. A 12” x 16” engraving takes about 5 or 6 hours to run, followed by cleaning and drying, and, if appropriate, painting. Lastly, I make a custom float frame.

Last year, Dave brought an engraved clay piece called “White Raven” to hang at Artworks Gallery, which has since attracted considerable interest. Created from an image he captured of a large leucistic raven, it shows a great deal of detail in this unusual bird.​

Finding and Photographing this Rare Bird in the Wild
The image of the black and white raven started with a very poor photo I took in North Cascades National Park near Diablo Lake. I was visiting a friend who worked at the park at the time, and we went for a short walk on a well-known trail. I caught sight of this pair of ravens not far off the trail and got two low-quality images, one of them perched on a stump with a conifer trunk behind, and the other of just the white raven.

Because the photographs were low resolution with a soft focus, I almost did not work with either photo. But the images were compelling to me, so I came back to them. After producing the image of the single white raven, I decided to tackle the pair perched together. This image was the hardest to work with because of the huge contrast between their coloring and the background. It took multiple editing attempts for me to get a good representation of the black and white ravens together.
 
Working with the Photograph to Produce a Usable Image
Because they were positioned in front of a tree trunk, the separation of the black raven from the background was a challenge for Dave. He abandoned fussing with the image and used Adobe Photoshop to eliminate the background entirely, leaving it white.  Then he dealt with the soft focus and low resolution of the image to get details from the black raven’s feathers. He says, “The huge contrast between the two birds just never came out right.  The black raven always came out as mud.”

Finally, he literally erased what little detail existed in the feathers and then created some unique brushes in Photoshop to painstakingly put detail back by adding lines into each feather. He used a similar technique on the white raven, but it was not as extreme. Throughout the editing process, he did a series of sharpening exercises, using Topaz software. He also used Topaz to upscale the image, increasing its dimensions and resolution.   Once all that was done, Dave saved the image with a transparent background, and he finally had the pair of ravens in a form he could work with. The two birds perched together created a stunning contrast in black and white.

Dave Describes the Dilemma of the Background
The last issue I had to tackle was the background. At this stage, I had the ravens on the tree stump, but the background was white. That seemed contrived, too heavily edited if you will. But the tree trunk from the original photo did not do the image justice. Trying to find a solution, I took multiple photos of Douglas Fir tree branches and experimented with them as potential backgrounds.

Sample Background Image
​Doug Fir boughs

Background Attempt #1

Background Attempt #2

Background Attempt #3

I felt that one or two worked okay, but everyone I showed them to said they preferred the simple white background. So that is what I finally used. I agree that the white background works best to accentuate the detail in the birds’ feathers and faces, their contrasting coloring, plus the beauty of the negative space around the two ravens. That said, I may try re-engraving the image with one of the Doug Fir backgrounds to see what it looks like in clay. It's always exciting to experiment with this process!

Final Clay Engraving - Leucistic and Black Ravens

Please come to Artworks Gallery to see Dave Somers’ engraved images! Please feel free to touch them. They are engraved in clay, and the surface has been coated with an artist’s fixative, which provides an acrylic coating. You won’t hurt the images. Dave shares, “I even had a little child who left some chocolate prints on an image, and the parents were horrified until I showed that I could easily wipe them off with no harm. Please touch them. Some of the engravings have a lot of relief to them and are very tactile.”
 
For Dave Somers, the creation of a clay engraving is an evolutionary process that takes place during many stages: the initial sketch or photograph, the inspiration that motivates him to see this work engraved in clay, considering and working out the details of the composition within the Photoshop software, trying different techniques as he described, utilizing the Photoshop layers, and finally reaching a created image that satisfies his senses and perception of beauty. Dave states: “This process is why I tell interested people that often the engraved image has no bearing on the original photo.  It is a long process and takes a lot to go from the photo to something that comes out well on the Claybord. Thanks for your interest in my process. Feel free to ask any questions or come by my shop in Honeymoon Lake to see how the laser works."

Contact Dave: Email: [email protected] or Phone: 805-751-9663
 
Curious about Albinism and Leucism in the Animal World?
A white creature like this raven is known as leucistic rather than as an albino. They are not common, and Dave shares that albinos and leucistic animals typically don't survive long because they are often not accepted by their extended families and flocks. Furthermore, they lack natural camouflage and can be more easily seen by predators. However, this one seems to have done well and perhaps found a mate in the black raven.
 
Both leucism and albinism are inherited conditions, and both are rare. You can tell an albino because its eyes and other exposed skin will be pink. The pink is due to the skin or eyes being transparent. The color of the blood vessels shows through, making the tissue look pink. They lack the pigments and melanin that would normally give them color. Leucistic animals only partially miss the pigments and melanin, so they are truly white rather than transparent. Their eyes and skin have pigment, so you don't see the color of their blood vessels showing like you would with an albino. And leucistic animals may not be completely white; they can have patches of white or lighter areas of fur, skin, or feathers. Also interesting is that humans can be albinos, but they are never leucistic.