Bird commission

 

At the PopUp Art Show on the weekend I was asked if I could make 3 comfort birds before I headed back to Maleny. I did not promise I could; but said I would give it a go.

As you can see from the photo above I have made some progress with one of the birds. In the photos below you can see I'm attempting to carve the 3 birds together starting with cutting the timber blocks and marking the 3 up.

Other progress photos follow.

If I continue to make good progress whilst doing maintenance and other jobs around the cottage I should be able to deliver them before heading to our Maleny home.

Two beauties

 

I got time to whittle away at some timber to carve a couple of timber vases as you can see from the photo above. The smaller tall one on the left is carved from a piece of the fallen liquid amber tree branch; and the one on the right from a scrap of rough cut camphor laurel.

Some process photos follow. In one you can see that I used the draw blade to shave the rough cut area off the camphor laurel. I was going to leave the bark on the liquid amber but found it had lifted in the drying process is ib the end it had to be removed.

I must say - carving these forms can be quite relaxing. The only drawback I have had to date has been that fine wood dust has the tendency to get in my eyes even when wearing protective glasses.

 

A little more carving

 

I was back in the workshop starting to turn timber offcuts into more vases. In the photo above you can see the new pebble vase at the back - this one is made from Bunya Pine.

A few process photos follow. You can see the brown spots that look like eyes are in the grain of the timber.

I made a start on a vase where I'm leaving bark on one face. I didn't get it finished because of other demands - maybe tomorrow. Love the Veritas draw knife!!! The timber is Liquid Amber - salvaged from a broken branch.

Ending with another photo of the completed pebble vase.

The carving is all good fun - though one has to be careful with very sharp carving tools; and the whole process is a bit time consuming.

A gift of woodcarving

 

For my recent birthday Fiona arranged a 3 hour workshop of both of us to learn to carve wood vases with Theresa Darmody as a gift to me. We did the workshop last night - and what a joy it was - great teacher, great medium and good outcomes as you can see from the opening photo.

We started with and introduction to tools, techniques and formed timber blanks similar to those below.

Quite a lot of the carving was done with the drawknife with the timber held in a vase - created lots of timber chips.

The outcome from all 8 students look gorgeous; and Fiona and mine on the work bench.

A couple more images of our completed pieces taken this morning.

There is no doubt woodcarving will continue to be something Fiona and I will share in our Maleny and Scotland workshop. I'm so grateful that Fiona organised this gift. 

If you click Theresa's Instagram link in the opening paragraph you will get to see the class and outcomes etc.