Engraving with other peoples artwork

Owning a picture from a favourite artist can be a very rewarding thing; you have something nice to hang on the wall as well as (hopefully) a good investment. This doesn’t have to be the end of it though. You could use the artwork as an inspiration for some engraving on your gun, with the permission of the artist of course. Just recently I have finished a commission that started out this way. The customer had four drawings by Simon Gudgeon of grouse and partridge and wanted them to be used as the game scenes on his pair of guns, I signed the engraving with my monogram and a reproduction of the artist’s signature. So now the customer has both the engraving he likes as well as the artist all on his guns. Coincidentally, I am just about to start a gun with fine scroll engraving and a woodcock illustration specially commissioned by another well known artist that this time knew that it was to be engraved on a gun, this has the advantage that it can be designed with the shape and scale of a shotgun in mined, so that screws and other bits of the gun do not intrude on important parts of the scene.