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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

love the clown fish head stock Craig your my hreo

Very nice Craig... I always like seeing your eye candy.

What is up with the symbols? Are they just decorations or does that mean something?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Craig, I've seen some of your inlay on George's guitars over here. I remember a small goose on a fret board. For those who don't know, George Lowden is just about the most respected guitar maker in the UK, a list of his customers would represent a who's who of European guitarists. It's George's guitars that we all aspire to rivalling. If you do work for George it means you really are the creme de la creme, but we knew that about Craig anyway! By the way a top of the range guitar built by George Lowden could set you back up to $17500!

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Brock, that's a Celtic Cross. George Lowden is from Belfast.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Thanks Lance, Micheal..

The cross is only 2.5 inches tall, and including the seperate cut pieces for inside the knot loops, it actually a 47 piece inlay. It looks way more simple than that doesn't it? Materials are sandstone corian, and gold pearl, and a piece of pink mussel at the base. The idea was wedding knot, set in stone. There's more of a theme than first meets the eye. It's a gift fo the client's wife, so I hope she loves it. There is a Celtic knot with a heart in the center going into the 12th fret as well, but George wants to inlay that himself as he finishes off his fretboards in a certain way un-condusive to any inlay going in until last. I pre-cut it and sent him the pieces.

The clownfishes are about 167 pieces, the anemone is all different shades of pink mussel, three pieces of black pearl, and a few pieces of purple sugalite for the anemone base showing through. The fish are gold pearl, spiney oyster, and white river pearl.

That's the headstock to the moorish idols and turtle scene I posted a while back. That's my ASIA guitar for this symposium. John K is doing the guitar, and as of now there is still a 250 piece leafy sea dragon almost fully cut for the back. It's going to be a routing nightmare.
Thanks!
Craig L

Fire away with the "I found Nemo jokes"

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Your work is fantastic Craig. One of these days I need to have you do me an alligator, but it has to wait till later this year, I hope.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Great work Craig as usual. Hmmmmm, seems you'll be represented at Healdsburg anyway, eh?

Question: Is this Lowden a customer. Or does it denote a new overlay for a real Lowden from Ireland? Confused.... a bit.....Dickey38443.4531481481

Beautiful work Craig
   You take the pearl and stone and bring it to life.

Thanks Guys.
Very much appreciated. I consider everyone's work here as top notch, so it's always nice to think the great builders in the community like my work

Bruce-
The Lowden is for Lowden guitars of Ireland. It's a custom build from George's newest production run facility I think.
I have done inlays for both. George's personal shop (hand built by him) and now for Lowden Guitars. As evidenced by the logo. The logo was CNC'd. It was on the headstock when I got it. This is actually the second time around for this cross. I did another version of it, larger, with different materials and a diffeent knot in the center. I was unhappy with it, and asked George if I could do it over. These are the the results.
Craigclavin38443.4634953704

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www.handcraftinlay.com

[QUOTE=clavin]

Fire away with the "I found Nemo jokes" [/QUOTE]

I started to

[QUOTE=Dickey]

Question: Is this Lowden a customer. Or does it denote a new overlay for a real Lowden from Ireland? Confused.... a bit.....[/QUOTE]

Bruce, see my post above. George Lowden is THE UK guitar builder, the big Cheese, the number one man, he is to UK guitar building what Elvis was to rock and roll. George is the one we all try to emulate. For Craig to be doing work for George is a true testament to Craig's skill.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

As usual, very beautiful work. You must have great patience to consistantly achieve such fine detail in your inlay.

Craig, that is some incredible inlay!

Do you study fish? It can't be easy to get such lifelike inlays without knowing quite a bit about the subject.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Thanks once yet again Colin! That endorsment check is coming one day I promise

And to everyone else. Thanks as well!

Dave, I have a degree in marine biology, as does my wife, she has her doctorate in it. But the more I look at art at all, the more you HAVE to study an image to get the effects you want. When I met Grit Laskin at ASIA two years ago he lectured on design. I already knew what I liked about his art, and what ideas I wanted to emulate. Things like making an image large enough to capture the details. Too small and you lose alot of what makes something what it is. Most times I will let the image go outside the boundaries of the guitar, like Grit does, so I can enlarge an area enough to get the details in, like the clownfish above.
I learned how to inlay, physically, from Larry Robinson's video's, and also I would e-mail Larry, and most often he would respond. I feel lucky, he seems way to busy for that now.

Art is in the details. If you know a topic, odds are you will be able, if you have the ability at all, to design something close to what you embody as that thing. For me, sealife. But if someone wanted an inlay of something else, maybe non-nature oriented, I most likely wouldn't turn it down. I would, however have to start studying that thing at least a little bit more to try to understand what the client see's in it as wonderful, so I can accent those things in my work.
If your designing a flower inlay for a gardner, or someone who loves roses, you better get the shapes and color tones right, or they will be unhappy. It's that simple. Or complex. It depends on the details

Craig

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Great gourds, Craig, that's amazing.
I can vouch for the fact that Craig won't turn down a paying gig. I emailed him that picture of Buffalo Bill, which he then turned into a rough sketch which we emailed back and forth. (Getting the size and placement just right.) Then Craig did his magic with pearl, and back from the past emerged old Bill. Craig tells me that was his first "portrait", but it looks like he's done this his whole life. He's that good.

sk

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

What I like in an inlay is a challenge. Not a hugely interlocking, white mother of pearlo-rama type thing. Yes, that's extremely challenging. But there are others who do that way better than I. I had a hard enough time on that little cross.
I like the nature oriented "this has never been done before" inlays. For some reason marine life hapens to fall into that category alot.
You'll see a lot of dolpins, sharks, here and there a ray, random fish here and there, but nowher except for me it seems nowadays, is there any concerted effort to do more with the theme.
Hopefully your brother can work some of his magic on the body, and I can get the back started. I promise you have never seen anyting like what is going into the back, if it doesn't kill me first! It's not a huge inlay, it's just so non-symmetrical.

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www.handcraftinlay.com