Whimsical Wood

Many 'Works in Progress' – Nothing Finished

2012-01-29T04:34:00.000-08:00

Apart from finishing one version of the 'Young Dragon Hiding' Pyrography and seeing the article lay-out for the 2012 annual 'Pyrography Issue' of 'Scroll Saw' magazine. I seem to have been progressing slowly with a number of projects and acquiring new ones but not completing anything.

Most of my time is required to continue the picture book I am illustrating at the moment and schools have also now resumed after the holidays with scripture classes recommencing soon. Sometimes, ironically, regular routines can help you work more efficiently and so I hope to be able to post some completed items here before too long.

So here is the Lovespoon I am presently carving for a show in a couple of months. It is a little different in style from my previous lovespoons and has no Celtic elements in the design. I have a number of very different styles I want to try with lovespoons including some simpler ones to try and build up a bit of a stock.

This spoon is being carved from New South Wales Rosewood, a native Australian timber that is excellent for carving, a little like mahogany but a bit crumbly and dry in texture and not too strong in the short grain. It requires a great deal of care when carving the more delicate sections especially when they are essential to the design and need to have a presence without any discontinuance, like the ribbon threaded through the heart.

There is still a long way to go with this carving before I even get to the sanding and finishing.

In the meantime I have another commission that has to be started on soon, so that by working on it intermittently but consistently I will be able to complete it on time around Easter. It sounds like plenty of time doesn't it? But the problem is, the bulk of my current projects all need to be completed around this time and the others need to be well underway by then as well.

The other projects include some pyrography works and carving for the shows I regularly enter. One important project, on hold at the moment, is the pair of dolls houses I began before Christmas intended as part of the Christmas present for our two grand daughters to go with their 'Sylvannia Families' Dolls.

This pair of houses is designed to be fitted to a sloping base that will be the front yards of the houses. It will be like a small section of street with neighbouring houses meant for 'neighbouring play' to take place. I had thought, that as the deign was simple and deliberately toy like, then it would be a straight forward and easy build. This might be the case when I get around to drawing up the design again and constructing a second version that incorporates lessons learned along the way, but for now I will have to press on, designing as I go and realising, this is how it is with a prototype.

I have always intended to present many of my woodcrafts designs as step by step tutorial projects including patterns and plans. There is much involved in this however, much more than just making and documenting the process. The making just sets you up to commence the first set of credible working drawings, before making and documenting a final 'step by step' tutorial that is tried and tested.

I have also commenced ( last year ), a course on botanical art with Leonie Norton . Fortunately the course is open ended as far as time is concerned, as I have only finished the graphite pencil section of the course.

I am looking forward to getting into the watercolour painting part of the course. My illustration work, at least as far as colour is concerned has been only digital for more than a decade and a half and I am keen to use real materials again. The combination of art and science really appeals to me and also links to my distant past as a biological

( untrained, there were no courses then ) illustrator. This kind of work is also different in nature from the more whimsical and fanciful genres that I like so much but I feel that the two different strands of expression can only work well together.

Getting Back on Track Soon

2011-09-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Various circumstances, mostly not bad ones, have prevented me from keeping up to date with this tutorial and I do apologise for that to all who are following along. The main content of this blog and the pattern for 'young Dragon hiding' is to be published as a step by step magazine article by Fox Publishing in their next 'Pyrography Special Issue', under the banner of 'Scroll Saw Magazine'.

This pyrography magazine had its inaugural issue published earlier this year. Consequent to this project being published I need to have the project completed, the article written and the accompanying photos prepared and annotated by the end of this month. This has meant that I had to start the project again in order to have photos of the process that are suitable for magazine production.

As explained earlier, this project has been experimental from the beginning and I have been feeling my way with it. In my first attempt at re-starting the project I changed some aspects of it. The changes did not work out and I have had to start yet again with a return to the paint materials I'd suggested at the beginning.

I have also now set up a more purpose made mini photo studio for taking the step by step photos and this should help with things in the future.

Along with the need to prepare the pyrography project for the magazine, I had a welsh lovespoon carving due for completion and this had to take priority over other projects. I'm happy to say the spoon has been completed and is on its way to its new owner.

The spoon is carved from an extremely hard timber called saffron heart. Hard to carve but a beautiful amber colour and it takes a good finish. The spoon is nine inches long and features a celtic style dragon between the chain link and the bowl.

Before getting properly back on track with this blog I will need to complete the material for the magazine article. In the meantime I will post some of the photos I have of current progress with this project. I will have to do this with little or no instructional text at this point but just hope you can make some sense of the photos as they stand. I will a bit later re-jig this whole tutorial into a more logical form.

I have also made some changes to the original pattern in that I have included scales on the dragon body. If anyone wants to have the new pattern with scales right away, then you can email me and I will gladly send you an updated pattern. Otherwise I will be placing the new pattern on my web site sometime next month.

My manner of working on this project has been more intuitive than methodical in nature. That is, I have tended to work on one section through to near completion, then move on to another area of the picture altogether and then perhaps to re-visit another area that has been already almost finished.

Just briefly for those following, After the water colour paint has been applied and it's thoroughly dry, I have then used the pyrography tip with the flat portion downwards to firstly burnish or polish the area I'm going to work on. This is done with a very low heat, low enough so that little or no tone is imparted to the work, just a 'glazed' polish leaving a surface so smooth that the pyrography tool slips smoothly over the surface.

Keep the tip of the tool polished and polish the area you'll be working on. With the heat turned up just a little, just enough to gently tone the timber, start shading your work in a combination of short gliding strokes and sometimes little circles. You will have to acquire a feel for this as you go and as you practice. Think of it as painting the tone on in a layering process achieving darker tones by repeated passes and by lingering slightly in some areas. Practice the technique on your scrap piece often and you will gradually gain confidence. I will explain the technique I have used more fully when I write this Blog up properly later.

The other technique is the use of coloured pencils to add the main colour to your work. Experiment with different colours some will work better than others and I don't just mean the hue involved but their handling characteristics on the pyrographed timber surface. the trick is, like using a very low heat on the pyrography tool, use very little pressure and lay down the pencil pigment without impressing the timber at all. Then after applying the coloured pencil polish the area with a tissue until the colour appears blended with the timber. You can lay colour over colour this way and finally polish the whole area with the very low heated tip of the pyrography tool.

This is a brief run down of the technique I have used. I will deal with the finer points later and in the meantime will add progress photos of the project as I go.

Adding Colour to the Pyrography

2011-09-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

The whole image is now outlined and the colouring process can begin. This whole process of using colour in a pyrography work is new and experimental to me, so those following along may want to use their own judgement as they follow, perhaps taking some of the steps further or perhaps not as far as I have. It might also be a useful idea for some to do as I have done and render two versions of the work simultaneously – a second chance – a bit of insurance against ending up with nothing but a learning experience.

In my case, I have been working on two examples to give you an idea of the different effects produced by the differing characteristics of the two timbers I have used. This won't of course, provide you with any exact information but will serve to show how much effect the timber type can have on the final result.

To colour the timber I have used a non acrylic designer's gouache. I could have used watercolour paint but the gouache is less expensive for you to buy unless you have something already and acrylic could be toxic or otherwise problematic if pyrography is attempted over it. The colours that I have chosen, are those that I thought would be most compatible to use on timber.

We want to preserve the natural grain and appearance of the timber and so we will be using the paint as a thin wash. These chosen colours have also been mostly selected from the more transparent versions of the colour pigments. It just happens that the selected colours are also from the 'series one' group of colours which are the least expensive. Information about the various characteristics of the paint,such as transparency etc, can be found in brochures in the art store where you buy the paint.

The actual colours that I have used are: Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Any fairly transparent Orange ( I didn't have orange in gouache and so I used watercolour mixed from red and yellow ), Ivory Black and Permanent white, any white will do and white is of course not in any sense transparent but we will be using very little.

The other colours that will be used (later) are good quality coloured pencils like 'Lakeland' mainly reds yellows and browns, include a good dark red perhaps.

To begin start with the Burnt Sienna, with a very small dob of paint in a small white dish, Like a finger bowl Make a thin wash just pigmented enough to make a pale coloration on a scrap of your timber after drying. You will notice that the wet paint will be considerably darker before it dries and depending on the timber and can appear alarmingly blotchy.

The blotchy effect should disappear though, when the timber dries. Some pigments on some timbers, however can come up badly. Most pines have this problem, including the timbers that are not really pine but are called some kind of pine, like the kauri pine I am using. You will also most likely be using a timber that has this problem as many of the light coloured timbers fall into this category. This is one reason to be using a very thin wash and moving up to darker passages of colour by repeated applications. The other reason is to creep up on the effect we want and not overwhelm the timber grain.

The colours we are using will all be very altered by the underlying timber colour and that's what we want to do, just subtly shift the original timber colour and then add tone afterwards with the continued use of the pyrography tool. Blues and even greens would be even more drastically altered by the timber's native colour than those we've chosen and it would be wisest to leave experiment with these, more 'dis-similar-to-wood-colours' to another time.

You will need a suitable brush to apply your paint and I would suggest a number 6 pointed round brush. A synthetic 'sable', rather than the real thing, would do and is much cheaper.

When you have a suitable Burnt Sienna wash prepared, lay in a wash within bounded regions of the dragon. Try to have enough of the watery paint on your brush to fill as much of the area you are painting as possible. As you come near the end of the brushes capacity in a passage of paint you are laying down, try to leave a wet-ish edge to add to, with a re-loaded brush. Stir and re-mix the water and paint every now and then as the pigments might settle and give you inconsistent densities of colour. You will notice this more with some pigments than others.

Think ahead, about how you will lay in the paint in the region you are working on and turn your work to get the best approach to it. This is a basic watercolour painting technique and you can get a better handle on the process, if you are not familiar with it, by googling 'watercolour wash technique'.

Putting down a watercolour wash on timber will differ somewhat from watercolour on paper however and that's another reason to use a very thin wash of paint to begin with. It's also another reason for you to use your own judgement in how dark you want to go with any of the colour applications to your work before continuing with the pyrography. You may decide, if you are having trouble with this part of the process to do less of the colour wash and rely more on the pyrography effects later.

As this is an experiment for me as well – who knows? – any decisions that you make that deviate from the path that I show, could just bring you to a better result. I only partially know what I am doing with this project and working with timber in general often precludes a predictable and methodical approach as the material imposes it's own variable nature on the task. I find design is almost always like this and it requires groping your way intuitively toward a solution, with only a few guiding principles.

Having mentioned 'principles' in the midst of a fairly relativistic account of 'what's a true way of working for me but might not be so for you', way of crafting, I will take the liberty, (I've often been accused of arrogance for this) of asserting briefly; That in real life, basic certainties (principles) can be known and be known certainly.

When I say basic, I mean really basic. We like to make things and we make those things, not according to time, chance and necessity, but we make them often for the love of someone else. We ourselves have been made and we've been made by a person who really knows things. How we've been made might be a matter of experiment- guided pondering but 'that we've been made', is an absolute certainty. When someone who REALLY knows (Our Creator that is) tells you a thing, then and only then, do you know that thing with an absolute certainty. Not believing that Person, robs you of knowing, but what he has spoken remains, the certain truth, nevertheless. The person who made us has told us things, in a word; Bible. In another word, The Word, Jesus Christ, cf. John Ch1. These certainties stand in contrast to the uncertainties of all that we do and say.

I did say that I would divulge my inmost thoughts as I went along with this project, the whys and the hows. So let's plunge again into the uncertainty of my leading and attend to the hows of this project partly based on past experience and on a lot of experiment, in order to finish the colouring on our outlined dragon. If you feel confident you can try adding some shading to the perceived shadow areas on the dragon, refer to the tonal pattern for this. Or you could just leave the painted areas as flat tones.

I painted in shading on most of the picture as I went along but only time will tell as the pyrography is completed, if the image becomes a bit heavy looking as a result. Again you use your own judgement and hang back if you think I've taken any part of the process too far.

When the dragon is completed then paint in the leaves and part of their stems with the yellow ochre in the same manner. Paint the branches with the burnt Umber and wash in orange over all the sky areas except the clouds. Nearing the end mix a very thin wash of Ivory Black and wash this over the whole sky area, after the orange is thoroughly dry of course ( a hair dryer can help here ).

Now this part is tricky if you want to attempt it. Keep adding more layers of black wash over the top portion of the sky and the left portion to try and get a graded effect across and down the sky. You will find that this is a matter of guesswork all the way, because the wet paint passages look so dark to begin with and you have to wait until it is dry before you can see the true result. The black paint brought out the grain in the european beech quite markedly in my piece and it remains to be seen if this will be a good or bad effect.

Last of all we can now add some touches of white to the clouds and the castle areas but keep it very dilute as the opaque white paint will have an overpowering chalky look if it is overdone. Now that all the underpainting areas are laid in we can commence the continued pyrography work to bring out the modelling in the elements of the picture.

I hope that along the way you have come across other possibilities for decorative effects that could be undertaken using pyrography lines with watercolour paint on wood. Try to keep an eye out for other directions you might take with the techniques you discover as you go and carry out your own experiments on your scrap pieces.

Outlining the Design

2011-08-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

Now that the image has been transferred to the timber we can start on the actual pyrography. But first we will need to consider the type of point we will use to carry out the various stages of the work.

I have used the original nib that came already attached to a Razor Tip pyrography pen that I recently bought as a second pen. I bought it to provide the convenience of not having to change nibs too often. I typically only use one or two nibs for my pyrography work and the one I use most, is one I have shaped from the wire they supply for making your own nibs. This nib is shaped to accomplish as many different tasks as possible and to avoid having to frequently change nibs.

For this exercise I have chosen to use the supplied nib and not my usual one as it is more likely to be the same as something you already have. At a later date I will demonstrate how I alter nibs to suit my own preferences, if it seems the information would be useful to anyone.

There is one small modification, if you can call it that, which we should make to the nib and should do from time to time as work progresses. That modification is to polish all the area of the nib that we might be using on the timber. To do this I have a small piece of MDF with a little fine abrasive compound rubbed on, something like rouge would do. It just requires the nib to be polished on this until a bright smooth surface shows, a quick wipe on a tissue or rag and the nib is in prime condition to do its work. From time to time a quick touch-up will keep it that way.

Now before the actual work begins on the project I always like to test the nib's temperature on a scrap piece of timber and I often do a fair bit of 'doodling' and experimenting with the mark making possibilities of the pyrography tool before I commence a new project. This is often time well spent finding out what the tools can do and what you can do with the tools.

Now onto this actual project, select a very low temperature that will barely make any impression on the timber and increase this by tiny amounts until you can easily make a good dark line, with no blobbing – slowly – on your scrap test piece. When you have this working just the way you want, you can start 'drawing' over the transferred line on your timber or board.

Start with the lines of the outside border first and try to produce a good black consistent line with the thinest edge of the nib. Do this by using short overlapping strokes building up the darkness of the line as you go, just gliding in from above the work surface touching the surface with just a little pressure and then gliding off the surface again. The short strokes can be as short as dots if need be and increased to longer strokes as you gain confidence. Practice this on your scrap piece if you need to, but don't worry about speed, concentrate on the quality of the line.

The quality that you are after in the line is a good dark tone and a fairly consistent thickness. You will notice that the lines in the pattern are not straight, as if they'd been done with a ruler but they undulate very slightly and there is even the odd deliberate kink in the line work, pyrography lends itself well to this particular style. Deliberate and confident but nevertheless lively and 'organic' is the aim as you draw over the lines. Have a look and study the work of illustrators like Arthur Rackham and Heath Robinson and see how much is conveyed by the line-work alone.

See how the line bounding the top of the upper lip of the dragon is actually composed of a number of lines, each flicking off in arcs to suggest a curved surface above it. In all such instances render individual lines carefully and deliberately letting their sum total come about of its own accord. It is the character of the lines that you draw in a line drawing that enables more to be conveyed to the viewer than just a boundary, the line can suggest and insinuate what lies above it and below it. It can begin to show the topology of adjoining surfaces like tonal shading can in a more tonal drawing. So whenever you draw a line try to have an awareness of what your drawing is indicating about every thing outside the line you've drawn. Think out side the lines.

This picture will depend a lot on the line work involved and so as we progress it will be the focus of much of our attention. After all the straight parts of the border lines have been completed we can turn our attention to the the rest of the work, noticing how the lines relate to one another, how lines join other lines, how the convergence of one set of lines relates to another set of converging lines.

I'm trying to show in the photo above where it might be best to begin and end the lines you are drawing in order to keep the relationships of the lines to one another.

An increasing awareness of how the line-work functions in a line drawing will enable you to make more and more shrewd choices as to how you will render over the pencil lines already there. It will also enable you to make useful changes and corrections to your pencil tracing and even to the original design as you progress. I found myself making small additions and corrections as I went, I can't say what they were because there were many of them and they were small changes.

One change that I will point out was where I deviated a little from the path drawing the border, the problem began due to inattention and the line I was drawing began to head in a direction away from the horizontal line I was supposed to be following. There was no way to erase as much work as I'd need to to fix this and an abrupt jump back to the proper path would destroy the integrity of the whole line so the only option was to gradually return to the original path over some distance. This is usually the best option when you start to go off course.

On the subject of erasure, it can be done, even extensively if there is sufficient thickness of timber. It can be done by scraping with an extremely sharp blade and or sanding the surface. The veneer on the working surface of my board was extremely thin however and when this is the case the options are less. Small blobs and small errant lines can be removed with careful scraping and I have shown this in one of the battlements on the castle.

Here you can see where a small erasure has been successfully made with a small blade to scrape away the unwanted bits.

As you continue to render the work onto your board remember to turn your board often to get the most comfortable hand position to draw your lines, keep the ball of your hand on the inside of all curves and devise strategies as you go to draw the lines in an order that will maintain their relationships as you draw them.

I am showing two versions of our project here one on European Beech ply and one on Kauri Ply to display the different effects that show on the different timbers. The Kauri is probably most like the timber you will be using if you are in our region of the world (Australia).

Kauri

European Beech

In the next post we will be moving to adding the colour and tone to our project. As this approach, adding colour will be new to me as well I've experimented on some scrap to give some idea of were we will be headed with the final rendering. The process will have stages and therefore options as to the final however. So take your time and above all enjoy your work.

Pyrography Tutorial 'Young Dragon Hiding'

2011-08-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

The relief carving of the dragon shown earlier was not finished in time but has been put aside until later while I finish a lovespoon carving. In the meantime I am posting this tutorial on a pyrography project that will be a bit different from the pyrography that I've done in the past.

This pyrography project will be more decorative in nature mainly relying on line work, with only a moderate amount of shading and also the addition of colour. I will be using the pyrography picture produced in this tutorial to cut a hand-crafted jigsaw puzzle after the art work is completed. A number of people will be following along using the same pattern so it will be a fairly detailed step by step process. The pattern used is in fact the same pattern I designed for the relief carving earlier.

This pattern will be available soon on my website in the pyrography section and will be available to anyone who wants to download the PDF file to use as a free pattern and follow along with the tutorial. The design itself is of course copyright and cannot be published or sold. You can use the pattern for your personal work and you may sell any craft works you personally make as an individual, not in the course of employment, provided you acknowledge the source.

Pyrography Tutorial 'Young Dragon Hiding'

I will be posting and adding to this step by step tutorial as regularly as I can find the time to do so and I will begin with the process of transferring the image from the pattern to your timber.

First obtain a relatively light coloured piece of timber at least 340mm X 190mm to accommodate the pattern. Sand the surface of the board thoroughly with 400 grit paper until it has acquired a soft sheen. 400 grit should suffice in this project as we will not be using a great deal of subtle shading. I often sand the surface to 600 or 800 grit. always sand with the grain of course.

Print your downloaded patterns on some 'bank layout paper', this is paper that is not as transparent as tracing paper but is still fairly thin and translucent. You could make do with anything close to these characteristics that will go through your printer.

Use cut down A3 size paper, because the image is just over 4cm longer than A4. If you only have an A4 printer like me then it might have a 'double A4 panorama' setting that will allow the entire image to be printed on cut down A3 paper equal to A3( 420mm ) long but 210mm wide. Otherwise You'll have to print two A4s registered and taped together.

With the grey line pattern printed on suitable paper, firmly apply a good coating of graphite from a 4B to 6B pencil on the back of the print directly over the lines. You can see the lines through the back of the paper because the paper is translucent enough to allow it. Otherwise you'll have to cover the whole back of the paper with graphite. Get a good coating on, because you don't want to have to repeat the process if you can help it. When you turn the print over you will still see the grey lines because the paper is opaque enough. Had you used regular tracing paper it would be too transparent and you would not see the lines you need to trace

The next step is to hinge the paper to the top edge of your board and then you can trace carefully over the grey lines with a blue biro ( it will show up where you have been and if you want to trace off another you can, using a darker biro, given there is sufficient graphite on the paper ). The reason for the grey lines should now be apparent and also the use of bank layout paper, which being thin, helps you to press through with an easy amount of firmness and get a good impression on the board without denting it too much. Do not trace the whole thing just yet, just one short line or two. Then you can lift the paper to see if you are getting a good transfer.

When you are satisfied that it is going to work, after checking, smooth the paper down flat again and tape it taught at the bottom with just a couple of short pieces keeping every thing firmly in place. You can now trace the line work onto your board with confidence if you use the same pressure you tested.

Trace over the entire image using short easy to control strokes. Take it slowly and carefully, a clean careful transfer will pay great dividends when it comes to rendering your work with the pyrography tool later. In fact try not to think of this process as tracing at all but drawing instead, a drawing that you will be doing two to three times over for just one result. Lose concentration, or skimp on effort, in just one of the processes and it will affect the rest of your work adversely.

During the 'tracing' process use all the tricks you know for drawing in general and treat it as a drawing exercise. For instance turn the board around from time to time to be able to follow the lines comfortably. Keep the ball of your hand on the inside of any curves you are drawing, so as to use the natural arc of your drawing hand and not awkwardly fighting against it. Rest you hand if necessary, you're not working to a deadline.

Try to get an understanding of the drawing as you go, notice how the lines relate to one another the way they join one another, at what angle they join, see when one longish line here or there is really a confluence of other joining lines and draw each of the separate lines that join to make it, rather than following the more economic conclusion of simply drawing what you think it pretty much seems to end up as. Analyse all the aspects of the line work as you go and treat the whole process as a drawing lesson. If nothing else it will keep this part of the job from being a mindless and boring process. Besides, pyrography is pretty much nothing more than drawing anyway, drawing on a particular kind of surface – wood in this case, with a particular kind of tool, pyrography pen, in this case.

When you've finished and all the grey lines are now blue biro, remove the paper. A distinct transfer of the original should now be on your board. The lines on the board will consist of a good many loose graphite particles that will soon make your nice smooth, light coloured timber board, into a quite 'grubby' smooth board, not as light coloured as it was formerly. The remedy is a piece of kneaded eraser, or 'Blu Tac' will do. Form the piece of 'Blu Tac' into a point, dab it all over the lines, picking up the loose graphite powder from the surface of your board. You will now have a very light but useable image to work from. If there are any places that have been lost or are too light to read, then you can touch them up carefully with an HB pencil and generally tidy up the transferred image.

That's the second time you've worked on this drawing and the actual pyrography will be the third if you don't count some of the extra details you will be drawing in later.

All the extra work that is put in at these preparation stages is going to make the final result so much easier to achieve and also far better in quality at the end. So next thing we will prepare the pyrography tools for action and commence building up the image on our board.

Horse at Petra Pyrography finished

2011-05-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

I have now finished the 'Horse at Petra' Pyrography and now I am ready to continue with the carving of the small dragon commenced earlier. It's a bit of a long shot to expect to get it finished for The Sydney, Timber and Working with Wood Show, but I will give it a try. A few other jobs came up and so I am way behind where I was expecting to be at this stage. I still need to construct a suitable frame for this pyrography piece for the same show, I don't want to end up finishing the frame on the day entries are delivered, like I have a couple of other times.

The following images show some closer detail with the 'Horse at Petra' piece.

A little Further Progress with "Horse" Pyrography

2011-05-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

I have progressed a little with the Horse pyrography and now have to darken the right hand side from the mane down to the bottom of the neck. When this is complete I can work on the dark background area. The background will be extended on the Left hand side up to the height of the horses right hand blinker where it will be faded to the natural wood colour or perhaps I'll terminate the shaded potion with a soft focus tree line.

I started to fill in the dark background area before finishing the horse's neck partly to see how dark I would need to go there, but also, this is really the main reason, I was demonstrating pyrography with this piece at the Trend Timbers stand at the Hawkesbury Agricultural Show where one of the woodcraft groups I belong to; 'Hawkesbury Woodcraft Cooperative', was manning the stand to promote woodcrafts. Where we were located a cool but intermittent breeze made the pyrography tool only intermittently predictable in its darkening effect on the timber. So I chose to work on an area where I could use a a larger shading nib and on an area where I could go back in later to make tonal adjustments.

I suspect many decisions in art and craft work, plus other human exploits as well, can sometimes be simply explained by the comfort, convenience, peculiar circumstances or other contingent effects that happened to present themselves at the time of design or making. Then well after the event, if they leave some identifiable presence in the completed work, they end up being seen as a part of the design that can be read as having significant meaning.

Most of the time your work should be careful and deliberate with purpose in everything you do. But sometimes you just blunder along, at other times just plain blunder. The thing is to reign in the mishaps and blunders and make something positive come out of them all the while learning to work better whenever you can.

When I have this piece complete I will need to build a frame for it and then see if I can get the 'Dragon Carving' completed by the beginning of June. Then I intend to concentrate on lovespoons for a while.

Horse Pyrography Underway – A Small High relief Carving Begun and A Simpler Welsh Lovespoon Design

2011-05-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

This pyrography piece is well underway now. It is from a photo I took around this time last year in Petra ( Jordan ).

Once the details have been completed I intend to add a very dark background on most of the right hand side and up from the bottom edge about five eighths of the way. I always find it a bit of a challenge to achieve an even tone in large dark areas with out adding unwanted texture, engraving itself into the timber surface. It is this engraved line effect however that makes pyrography such a suitable medium for the portrayal of animal fur and feathers.

I have returned to using hoop pine again for this piece partly because it is readily available here and it has no open grain that would lead to more than just a little bit of extra work to render those expansive dark areas that I intend to add. Much of the pyrography work that I have done so far has been reliant on the building of tones and textures with short layered strokes with a modified fine writing point and 'brushed' on passages with a shading tip in the larger darker areas. This technique works well enough for fairly realistic renderings and the portrayal of detail in fantasy pictures but I am thinking of using just line, or mostly line, together with water colour or gouache for some pieces more decorative in style and possibly more enduring from an archival point of view.

Most of my pyrography work has been for entry in competitions that I am eager to support as there is generally little participation in wood crafts in my country unfortunately. This leads to doing work that displays as great a range of tonal and line marks on the timber as best represents a thorough going application of the craft being represented rather than what makes a pleasing picture or decorative object.

It has been interesting in this piece attempting to represent the texture in the woven bands around the horse's muzzle without trying to replicate the patterned texture of the woven bands exactly. There are two reasons for not trying to represent the pattern exactly but instead trying for the 'appearance' of detail through a more achievable method. I've used an 'impressionistic' layering of short engraved lines dots and hatchings to arrive at what might, I hope, sort of appear as if it where accurately drawn.

The first reason for not attempting an exact representation is .., I simply couldn't be bothered, even if I had the skill and concentration to do it. The second reason is that the real texture that I am after here is a combination of the mathematically precise pattern of the weaving being bent around the hardware in slow and fast curves and all the while being made up of fibres pulled and abraded according to the 'fuzzy logic' of the passage of time. These contradictory attributes of the "threadbare-precise' or the 'unravelling-intricate' are a fascinating challenge to render convincingly and I'm not sure If I succeeded or not.

Perhaps much of the success of a realistic drawing depends upon having a 'good audience' like a stand-up comedian wishes for. The audience has to allow themselves to be tricked (willingly) into seeing detail that really isn't there, just looks as if it is. A drawing of an intricate subject needs to look as if it is intricate rather than actually being intricate.

The longer strands of hair in the horses mane are going to pose similar problems as it's the forms of, whole locks of hair, that I want to show the modelling of, in the strong light from the left. The locks will need to have their own substantial presence while still appearing to be composed of thousands of individual hairs, some light against dark and some composing the shadowed recesses of the locks, all the while flowing in slow and sinuous curves across the short hair on the forehead and neck.

I am getting this pyrography piece ready for the Sydney, Timber and Working with Wood Show in June and had hoped to include an entry this year in the carving section.

Pierced Relief Carving Of a Small Dragon

The Carving is a high relief pierced carving on a small panel of mahogany. The subject is a dragon again as will be the theme on my next love spoon. It's not that I'm obsessed with dragons as a subject but they just seem to have cropped up in my work lately. I do enjoy doing dragons though, mainly because in drawing them you are left completely free from any discipline like getting proportions, details and aspects of anatomy correct. They just have to look good and you can add any detail you think would look interesting.

I've just finished illustrating a children's book featuring marine animals and although the animals were a bit stylised I still had to take care to get things right more or less. Way back when I was a biological illustrator I worked with the absolute requirement to get these things right. So as much as I enjoy accuracy, fantasy allows the enjoyment of just getting things to look interesting, without the shear hard work of showing the interesting aspects of the real, truthfully.

The dragon that I'm hoping to carve in this small panel is meant to be in a sort of 'sinuous-gothic' style with the curves in the composition continually interrupted by little brakes and pointed intrusions and extrusions.

Line in a sense will be an important aspect of this carving.

I have always enjoyed the line work in the exquisite penmanship displayed by Arthur Rackham's illustrations and they do seem to blend an 'art nouveau' style with a gothic flavour. I also love the shapes that William Heath Robinson produced in his work, shapes enclosed by a careful and deliberate but clever line that insinuates solidity inside the shape it encloses. It is the ragged energy of Arthur Rackham's illustrations that I want bring into this carving however.

The design has been Attached to the Mahogany blank and I have pierced out the openings on the scroll saw. My original intention was to carve a relief that could be viewed from both sides but to have any chance of finishing it by june I decided to carve from just one side. This is going to create its own problems to solve I'm sure. I'm just about as sure I'm just kidding myself I can finish it by June while giving priority to the above pyrography, but I can only try.

The dragon in this carving is represented about 'life-size' hiding in the foliage of a generic sort of bush about a mile from a medieval castle, as late Victorians would have imagined it. You see I don't take my dragons all that seriously.

Having cut out all the openings on the scroll saw and launched into the carving I can see that there will be a lot of re-drawing of what in the final analysis is really a three dimension illustration rendered in or into a single piece of timber. Where exactly every thing is to be located in that third dimension is going to be a puzzle and I'm thinking at this stage that the carving is going to require fine finishing. Achieving a fine finish might be difficult way inside the carving but I might be able to resort to removal and re-attachment of some elements of the work if it doesn't permanently interfere with the integrity of the piece or make it vulnerable to fragility.

Re-attachment of parts or even using separate pieces isn't something I've tried before in a carving as opposed to a model and of course in the carving of a love spoon it would be a total betrayal of the very essence of what a lovespoon is, by breaking the one defining rule apart from actually being a spoon.

Nevertheless this relief carving isn't a lovespoon. If I manage to finish this relief carving well, I can tell that it won't quite be the same to me as the carver, as carving a lovespoon. It would be pleasant and interesting enough work, together with its own daunting difficulties along the way..,

someone will end up with it and I hope they gain pleasure in having it but somehow lovespoon carving is more a work of service, the recipient is more in view, even if they are as yet unknown.

I can't give a logical account of why this may be the case with the carving of lovespoons it just seems that way.

Its only a practical, logistic consideration but having to construct a clamping board to hold this relief carving reminds me of how much I prefer being able to hold the work in my hand most of the time as I work. Tools are used differently in different types of carving I'm also finding that though I use small chisels and gouges extensively in the carving of lovespoons, I am in fact using them as if they were each, a special kind of knife.

There are ways of using knives in miniature carving such as lovespoon carving that can be inherently safe to the other clamping hand, as the natural arcs of hand movements and the breaking imposed by the natural limits of joint movement, keep the cutting edge only where it should be.

Celtic Dragon Lovespoon Design

As a beginning of a number of simpler lovespoon designs I've drawn up a rendering in Photoshop of a spoon that I intend to carve in a very hard yellowish Queensland timber called 'Saffron Heart' I'm going to see how this design looks carved in the hard timber as finely as possible but without the obliteration of the tool marks by finishing with abrasives. So far I have used abrasives extensively in the finishing of lovespoons and I think that this is usually necessary to achieve the look that I prefer. However I would like to have a go at a different Kind of finish if it seems that it will be effective in the end.

So I have a number of projects at various stages and will endeavour to post regular progress on each asa time goes on.

Pyrography on European Beech Ply 'Compliance'

2011-03-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

Just finished 'Compliance', a pyrography picture of a harnessed donkey 280mm X 420mm, on european beech veneered ply, with a small amount of white coloured pencil on highlights.

It's the first time I've tried using coloured pencil and that was because of the beech being just a bit darker than the hoop pine which I've always used in the past. I have another pyrography project to do shortly and I think I will go back to the hoop pine, which is not really a pine at all but a soft white timber native to Queensland, Australia and very suitable for pyrography.

For the next pyrography work I will be doing something a little more along the fantasy line as it will need to be done quickly, because I intend completing an 'in the round' carving project I've been preparing a plasticine model for. This may not be possible as I still have some Illustrations to finish for the book I'm currently illustrating.

After all this I hope to concentrate efforts on some new love spoon designs and also an automata project, that for a long time, has been and still is.., on the drawing board.

Dragon Lovespoon Finished

2011-02-03T02:29:00.000-08:00

The 'Dragon Lovespoon' has now been completed and many lessons have been learned along the way. I can see why white beech is highly regarded as a carving timber but I have also learned that it would not yield easily to some of my design intentions – and not at all to others. The idea of a darker and perhaps textured passage of carving in contrast to a relatively pale timber for most of the design, has appealed to me since I saw this effect in one of Mike Davies lovespoons. Pyrography was going to be the means I would use to tone and texture the dragon and to pyro-engrave the scales but a little experimentation on some white beech scraps showed that the soft oily/waxy timber would make this impossibly tricky.

The scales where carved onto the dragon, something which the timber did allow – white beech holds detail surprisingly well for such a soft timber – however its waxy nature made plan 'B' for achieving the two toned effect so difficult that the final result was something less than, or at least, something other than, what I had envisioned when I started out. The whole finishing process in fact was made difficult by the nature of the timber.

Along the way I was able to get some inkling of just how well this timber might be finished using the natural attributes of the timber to bring out its inner beauty. The natural oils and waxiness of the timber could enable it to brought to a very good finish without any other finishing products and perhaps just a little wax and rottenstone would be all the finishing necessary. Plan 'B' however and the two toned finish I was after had sent me down a contrary path to working sympathetically with the timber and so I persevered through various iterations of using artist oil tinted danish oil – washing off with turpentine and reapplying, until a final truce was bartered and some lessons about fighting against, rather than working sympathetically with the particular timber used, were learned.

Gilding with 24 carat gold leaf was another lesson attempted, a lesson that might have been easier on a flat surface rather than the concave interior of the spoon's bowl with two included hearts. The tooled finish inside the bowl, mirrored on parts of the large heart at the top of the spoon, added to the surface area that had to be gilded, more than you'd think.

I'd mentioned before that the white beech held detail quite well in spite of being very soft but the kind of deeply layered detail in this design left me thinking as I progressed, that a harder timber like rock maple would have left a finer finish straight from the tools in those hard to reach areas where the angle of attack for the cutting edge must necessarily be a steep 'scraping' cut. In this timber it was impossible to avoid some fuzziness and little tear-outs in these hard to reach areas. Some fine (400 grit) rifflers that I had recently purchased likewise left some fuzzy fibres, not on the surfaces they worked on but on the adjoining arrises. Fortunately this fuzziness was removed, where it could be reached, with narrow strips of abrasive, even at the same grit as the rifflers..?

The final result was not exactly what I had hoped to achieve, as to the two toned effect or to the fineness of finish that I'd desired. Instead the tinted danish oil with the bit of extra colour on the dragon has ended as an antiqued 'grunge' sort effect.

The use of white beech has been part of a quest to find some suitable Australian native timbers just right for love spoon carving and or designs suitable to the timbers used, but this will require the kind of knowledge only experience can supply. I'll be using white beech again as I still have a few pieces but next time I'll design to work with it rather than against the nature of the timber.

Progress on Dragon Lovespoon

2010-12-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

All of the main areas of the design have been roughed out now and most of the design decisions have also been made. That is, decisions that relate to the various depths in the three dimensional form of the entire carving, where the many elements appear. The refining of the forms, adding of details and then the long and careful preparation for the final finish should be a series of tasks a little less risky so far as breakage is concerned.

But not less risky concerning the final appearance of the finished carving.

There is considerable work to be done with the detailing of the large heart with an overlapping leaf pattern and some design decisions to be made about the back of the large heart.

All the knot work has now been laid in, back and front and after smoothing their form with needle files and scraping where possible. I will then attempt the bevelling of the top faces of the ribbons that make up the knot work as originally intended. The back of the knots will be plain and flattish just a little concave.

The scales on the dragon are also going to require quite a bit of work to complete and will also require some modification along the dragon's tail as I have ditched the round section tail for a more hard edged rhomboid section with better light catching properties. I had originally thought of using pyrography to engrave the scales on the dragon and to texture and darken the dragon in contrast to the rest of the spoon but this bold step will depend on many contingencies, including the nature of this particular timber and how well it responds to the technique, the simple fact that not all parts of the dragon are easily accessible and lastly whether I can convince myself by experiment and practice on scrap that the pyrography will make the appearance of the carving better and not worse. I have seen some striking examples of pyrographed toning on some spoons carved by Mike Davies and I've wanted to try this myself. Whether this is the spoon to try it on will depend on the results of experimentation on some scrap pieces.

Even the intended bevelled edges on the top face of the knot-work will require some careful trialling before I plunge into it and I think I may have to get a bit more depth on the top of the knot-work first.

Where the bevels interact with over-layed flowers and stems may also prove tricky.

The bowl of the spoon needs just a little refining of its shape on the outer surface but quite a bit needs to be removed from inside the bowl and undercutting the two hearts contained within it.

The spoon is starting to get somewhere but there is still some way to go yet.

Dragon Lovespoon

2010-11-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Progress has been slow and intermittent so far, with the 'Dragon Lovespoon', due to my other current work commitments. With the carving of the 'Dragon Lovespoon' the most immediate goal that I'm looking forward to, is that point in the carving when all the critical design decisions have been made and the safe, albeit tedious, 'haven' of finely finishing the carving, is reached. Of course right after the initial thrill of finishing some small section to that point where the natural beauty of the timber starts to show and a certain pleasing crispness begins to appear in the forms and shapes, then a restless desire to be designing something new will set in again.

Bearing this in mind it is as well that love spoons have a back and front, so a little variety can be introduced by proceeding to some of the finishing process, with needle files at least, (abrasives are best left until your edge tools are reserved for the next project) and then getting back to carving those parts that will still need some intuitive design work to complete them. I find that I need this variety in a long project, but more especially when I don't have other different work to attend to at the same time.

Engineering a little variety into the work is probably a good idea as long as the discipline of designing well and finishing well isn't interfered with by indolently, only attending to pleasant tasks. However I do have some other work on hand at present and the carving work is something interesting and pleasant to look forward to at various set times. Having good and interesting work to do, is certainly a blessing and a gift from God to mankind, but all work has its tedious side plus its pain and however well it finishes up, there's always something more and something better to look for and look forward to.

The general thickness of this carving, in many places, will be greatly reduced as material is removed from the back of the spoon. This is a time when thought needs to be given to keeping strategic strength in vulnerable parts of the spoon to weather the relatively rough handling of some of the more strenuous passages of carving.

The 'unders' and 'overs' of the Celtic knot work have been set in on the top of the spoon and the depth has been determined for many of the elements. The full three dimensional form of the dragon is still being determined however as carving begins on the back of the spoon.

As the stem of the spoon is 'buried', more or less, in the depth of the carving and only short lengths are accessible to cutting at any one time, the desirable fair curve for the spoon's neck, is going to be a challenge to carve. A lot of guessing and estimation, plus constant checking, will be necessary to establish the long slow and largely imaginary curve of this neck as it traces its 'apparent' path to the bowl of the spoon.

One side of the large heart at the top of the spoon has been carved awaiting the relief carving of the leaf pattern over the surface. I am still deciding how the back of this heart will be carved, whether it will be the same as the front or carved in a more concave manner. A great deal of 'on the fly' design will be needed when the main forms on the back of the spoon are established.

Some continuation of the plant and floral elements on the back of the carving are also going to temper the general alacrity that can be expended on the removal of the large quantities of material on the back as some of this material will be needed for those parts of the continued floral elements situated at the upper layers of the back of the spoon.

Carving of the 'Dragon Lovespoon' Commenced

2010-11-11T02:16:00.000-08:00

After completion of all the scrollsaw work, from the pattern. I have commenced the actual carving of the design. There is in fact still quite a bit of design work left to be done, because after the initial plan view drawing of the spoon design, and perhaps a few sketched lines on the edge of the timber block, everything else 'inside' the carving, is beyond my visualisation ability and I am forced to proceed intuitively into the rest of the carving work.

When I say 'forced' into an intuitive mode of working, I don't mean to say that this aspect of the work is not an exciting one and also an enjoyable one, as possibilities suggest themselves for inclusion in the design at many points, in a way enhancing to the work. Things that I might never have thought of with pencil and paper alone. Things for which I can take no credit, just recognise and accept what has been provided.

There are perplexing points as well, as sometimes no clear way ahead appears and mishaps and obstacles pop up instead. All this is part of the story that goes into the carving of a lovespoon however, and whether it is to be known or not, it's good to think that this hidden narrative will somehow add to the enjoyment the recipient will acquire through receipt of this kind of gift.

Perhaps they will be moved, by an albeit, hardly articulate sense, of what has gone into the whole carving, designing and making process. Moved to something like gratitude, not so much to the designer/carver as for the carver, to the maker of that carver – and also maker of the material used – and also maker of their very selves. Selves that have been given their own skills, abilities, even perplexities of life, in which they are sustained in their being.

It must have been easier in a less technological age, even more perhaps in a less industrial age when the human hand was more evident in just about every household artefact, to be confronted with the connection of human lives that had participated in the things we use and have. Many zeros and ones, company profits, corporate identities and shareholders stand between us and this connection now.

You don't have to own a hand-crafted object (most artist/craftspersons would like you to consider it), but have a look around at that part of creation that consists of things made lovingly by human hand, learn an art or craft yourself if you feel inclined, but consider the creator behind every creation and its human connection. And consider that, that creator connected with humanity by becoming human. Lived, suffered and died guiltless and rose again in eternal supremacy. And consider at last that connection with him which is by his invitation, a connection, when you receive it, for which you can take no credit but just recognise and accept what has been provided.

In consideration now of this particular carving, for better or worse, I'm finding the relative softness of the timber requires careful cutting with very sharp tools. But still, the fiddly cutting in close quarters, that I'm having to do in some areas, is resulting in whispy residues of that cutting and tiny tear-outs that will all have to be removed with careful fine sanding at a later stage, probably lots of fine sanding and somehow that needs doing without removing the crisp edges that will need to persist to the finish.

Normally I would use the penciled-in profile of the spoon, on the edge of the block, (temporarily re-assembled after scrollsawing the pattern) as a guide to removing a substantial portion of the waste with the bandsaw however in this case because the design is so dense and layered throughout most of its length, it's not possible to do this with much certainty of not removing too much. So I'm relying on the timber's softness to allow a gradual removal of waste 'on the fly' at those times during the carving process when I actually know what I'm doing.

Dragon Lovespoon

2010-11-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

The Outline of the spoon has been cut and the side offcuts kept for the re-assembly of the block prior to cutting the profile. As with my previous spoon, the design, as seen from the top, will lay on many different levels not yet determined, consequently not much can be removed from the profile without diminishing design options.

I have left the inside cuts un-cut as yet and have proceeded to carve out the chain link and swivel, just in case the swivel was not possible to free. I had to use my hand-made bent (heavily bent) chisels, made from piano wire, to get access to the area deep in the cleft of the large heart.

White beech is the softest timber I have carved so far and I'm finding that this softness presents its own problems. To begin with it is much 'easier' to carve, requiring less strength but even greater care is necessary because; cuts can go deeper, a slip can leave a damaging gash, non cutting parts of tools can leave dents, files have to be used carefully and without undue pressure or they will compress and burnish the timber surface rather than cutting and a little more 'on-the-fly' planning has to employed in general as you carve.

I am more used to the quiet violence of imposing form on the valiant resistance of hard timbers than the easy surrender to every errant cut that the softer wood continually threatens. I'm sure this experience will be valuable but I'm also hoping that the entire design will hold up in this timber.

At the bottom of the right hand corner of the design is a knot that I had hoped did not go all the way through or at least became solid toward the centre of the timber block.

Unfortunately it does go all the way in a raggedly open form and so this portion will have to be removed changing the design.The change will only be minimal however, just a small part of the smoke cloud from the dragon's breath.

The next task will be to cut the inside cuts on the scroll saw. Then I can proceed to carve and re-draw, carve and re-draw again and again until each element reaches its level in the multi-layered design.

Dragon Lovespoon

2010-10-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

This 'Dragon Lovespoon' design is my next intended carving piece and will be worked on at nights mostly, and will also give me something to do at woodcraft meetings. I have some illustration work to attend to on week days and as good as it is to have that work, it will be a welcome respite to have something a bit different, like carving to look forward to and enjoy doing at the end of most days.

The challenges of this new work however will undoubtably bring about their own toil and struggle as I enjoy the work and the means to do it, by the sweat of my brow.

The meaning behind the symbolic elements in this design is generally intended to represent a couple being sustained and protected through both the pleasant times and the trials, that accompany life, in this 'present evil age'. Not much more ought to be read into the design however as the particular meanings of the elements have more to do with such simple things as, simply wanting to include a celtic style dragon and some knot-work partially entwined with floral elements.

The dragon is, in this case, implicated in the trials part of the story, instead of being a protector and this in turn is in order to make something of a turbulent section of figured grain in the timber I'm intending to use for this carving. The timber is white beech, an Australian native timber that is valued as a carving timber.

It will be the first lovespoon that I have carved in a timber native to my country, but I am eager to try a few such timbers for this kind of work. It will also be the softest timber I have carved so far and I'm hoping that it will be strong enough to stand up to some heavy carving. This particular piece of white beech also seems a little bit on the waxy side so I'm also hoping that this will not interfere with the finish. Since finishing the 'Cariad Spoon' I have purchased some palm handled tools, which seem to be more suited to the smaller scale carving encountered in lovespoons and I'm eager to try them out on a real carving.

'Cariad' Welsh Lovespoon Finished

2010-09-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

The 'cariad' Spoon is now finished. I changed my mind about trying to fill the grain of the walnut and decided a flattish, subtle sheen would look best in this dark wood. Smooth and inviting to the touch but without the myriad of specular highlights that might confusingly emanate from – all the ridges, of all the components, at all their various levels, all at once – if a high gloss finish was used.

There are times when a much higher gloss would be appropriate but with the elements of visual interest being at so many different levels in the carving, a finish that allows the light to gradually and softly reflect from the surfaces each in their own turn is the best way, in this case, for the carving to tell its story. The slight openness of grain in the walnut still remains as I have used a penetrating finishing oil consisting mostly of true tung oil and other organic oils. This allows the woodiness of the walnut to remain un-submerged but simply modified in a way natural to the timber.

Daylight and indoor lighting bring out some different colour moods from the dark walnut.

The grain pattern of the walnut by way of 'happy accident' provided the banded patterning on the foremost canadian goose in a very useful way helping to establish its identity at least a little, where shape alone was all that the dark timber could be hoped to provide.

The back of the spoon shows the re-growing tree stump, the heart motif and the merging of the rocks, celtic knots and gear fragments. With the bowl of the spoon joining up through the connecting rod to the rocks.

Resting just above the bowl of the spoon is the captured ring representing the 'Iron Ring' worn by Canadian engineers.

Cariad Lovespoon, finishing begun

2010-08-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

The 'Cariad' Welsh Lovespoon has now been completely carved and the sanding and finishing process has begun.

Any further work with edge tools, which should only be a little tidying up here and there, will be done with small 'disposable' blades (of course even these can be re-honed to acceptable sharpness again) so that the abrasive particles left on the timber will not dull my carving tools. If I do need to do any more carving work with my usual tools then I will first scrape the area with a trimming knife blade to remove any remaining abrasive particles.

To begin the finishing I will commence with 240 grit paper and move up to 1200 in stages. This might seem excessively fine but I believe it helps to achieve the kind of finish I'm after.

I will be using a tung oil based Danish Oil finish applied with a small brush and worked with wet and dry abrasive at the 400 grit stage to fill the grain prior to the final coat. The final finish will be a wax polish to bring up just the right sheen.

When the work has been finished to the right level, then the play of light on the surface should bring out the details in the carving and the beauty of the timber, much more so than can be seen at this stage.

Some types of carving are best not sanded, letting the tool marks show and bear witness to the carver's interaction with the tools and the wood. In this case and possibly with love spoons in general I think a fine finish looks best. I can't articulate why this seems to be the case, perhaps it is the scale of the work, how close a scrutiny it invites or how much it asks to be felt in the hands. It all depends on what achieves the most pleasing result and suits the work best.

Cariad Lovespoon Back on Track

2010-08-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

Most of the main details of the 'Cariad ' Welsh lovespoon have been roughed out now, including the reverse side of the spoon. Each element has been established on its level in the multi-layered design. Some teeth still need to be added to the gearwheel and pinion, the 'iron ring' needs to be carved and separated from the lower neck of the spoon and the bowl of the spoon needs to be fully roughed out.

Then remains the long and important task of refining all the shapes, first with edged carving tools, then with fine rifflers and needle files, before final finishing is done with a series of finer and finer grit, wet and dry abrasive papers, until a silky gloss is obtained. Then at last the final finishing with danish oil and polishing with wax.

You will probably have noticed the change in colour of the spoon at this stage. The cherry 'Cariad' spoon now known as the 'learning experience spoon' has been replaced with the walnut version of the 'Cariad' spoon. The Cherry spoon, due to some earlier problems in planning a workable procedure, had started to deviate from the original design in ways that I was not happy with. The top area of the spoon with the links and sun motif had been very cramped and ultimately led to a reshaping of the rays that basically spoilt that part of the spoon. I had no choice but to start over, and as I could not get hold of another piece of cherry quickly, went back to a nice piece of walnut I already had and to a new spoon, slightly scaled up in size and more closely following the original design.

The walnut has not proved to be so much a problem for holding fine detail, as I had first thought and the darker colour seems also to work well with this design.

There is a little more detail work to be done on the Geese, mountain and the gate at this stage and then the finer finishing. It's difficult to see here but the grain in the walnut has shown a fortunate presence of figure on the side of the front Goose, closely resembling the banding on its wings and body. When final polishing is done the figure in this timber will be clearly seen and its present drab appearance will be replaced by the sheen of polished walnut.

Some work has now also been done on the back of the spoon with motifs added to make use of the reversed shapes that are made by the lettering and the goose wings intersecting the sun's rays on the other side.

The back of the spoon has been roughed out and features some different motifs presented in a slightly more abstract way. The sun with its rays, now tops a regrowing tree stump, the roots of which blend into a looser montage of knot pieces, gear fragments and rocks with the connecting rod merging into the neck of the spoon bowl.

The re-growing tree stump is a favourite motif of mine and I have used it as the signature piece in hand-crafted wooden jigsaw puzzles that I have made in the past. Apart from the obvious meaning a re-growing tree stump conveys, like renewal and vital continuation, it symbolises, in the book of Jeremiah and other places in scripture, the promised Messiah Jesus, and the final establishment of his eternal kingdom at the end of this age. A kingdom into which all people are now invited at his expense and as his cherished possession.

Roughing out 'Cariad' Welsh Lovespoon

2010-07-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

Fretting out all the inside cuts for the lettering, the celtic knot-work and the gear wheels has been a bit of a problem. My attempt to make things a little easier for the scroll saw work, by cutting away much of the waste on the underside, only created other problems. I no longer had a stable platform and even after taking the precautions that I had foreseen these were barely enough to make cutting possible. The job did get done of course but with much more difficulty than I had envisaged. The lesson learned is to leave a good solid base on the work for the scrolling even if it means a very slow progress through the thicker timber.

The precautions that I was able to take, to try and provide, what I thought would be a completely stable platform, was to keep all the shaped off-cuts from any previous cutting (always a good idea) and reassemble the block from these. I had begun to do this prior to drilling, on the drill press, the entry holes for the scroll saw blade. Then with clear packing tape and hot-melt glue, I re-assembled the block.

Even with the block re-assembled there was enough flex in the assembly to make the cutting difficult, requiring extreme concentration constant stopping and a cautious cutting a little further from the line than I normally would. In some areas, where overlaying elements are to be carved and no saw piercing was possible, it would be only by carving that the forms could be established. So likewise I would simply have to carve up to the lines where I hadn't dared too close a cut.

With Most of the scroll sawing done I have started roughing out the major forms and establishing them at their various levels relative to one another, by carving their outlines, 'moving them down' in relation one another and re-carving as I go.

I had taken advice from David Western about the suitability of cherry for this piece. David had warned that apart from its general suitability for the particular needs of this piece and its sheer hardness, cherry had a tendency to be a bit splintery. I have found this to be the case. The timber cuts very crisply and cleanly with the grain but not so well across the grain where the fibres tend to separate into a slightly splintery texture. These areas where they occur, I notice, are easily cleaned up with some fine filing with a needle file, so I am confident that the long and careful finishing process is going to eventually bring up a surface that will do justice to a beautiful piece of timber.

So I will be continuing to rough out all the forms, then thinning down the knot-work and working the back of the spoon into the total design and sometimes refining some parts as I go to see how things are going to look.

'Cariad' Welsh Lovespoon

2010-07-13T00:17:00.000-07:00

The intention had been to commence fretting out the pierced areas as the next stage but I was a bit worried about the small amount of room I'd left for separating the chain links at the top of the spoon, So I tackled Carving the chain first. After carving the chain links I began establishing some of the levels to which various elements would be carved. Doing this helps me to visualise those parts of the design that couldn't be be fully planned in the two dimensional drawing.

I also did a bit of roughing out inside the spoon bowl and will get back to this later, for the time being I'm trying to leave as much material to work with as possible, partly to safely creep up on final dimensions and partly to accommodate enough freedom to make further design decisions as work proceeds.

Having a fully rendered illustration of the intended spoon that can be reprinted as many times as needed is a really useful thing for a couple of reasons. I can cut and paste elements of the design back onto some carved away sections of the spoon and the shading, especially on the celtic knot-work gives me a ready reference both for redrawing on the carving when necessary and to avoid mistakes in the third dimension such as the 'under and overs' in the knot-work.

One simple tool I find useful at various stages and in lieu of sandpaper until the final finishing, is a trimming knife blade which can be used as a scraper just to tidy things up, like the exit points of drilled holes. It is always a good idea not to use any sand paper until all use of your edge tools is finished. If any sanding has been done prior to using your carving tools the this scraper can be used to scrape the area clear of any grit that may be embedded lurking to take the edge off your tools. Honing vigorously on just one side of the trimming knife blade imparts a slight burr on the edge and it will scrape more deeply producing fine shavings.

Another useful tool, if you don't have a carving gouge is a (cheap or reclaimed ) chisel ground with a round edge, it performs the same task as a gouge as you can see in the lower photo.

Cutting Outline for 'Cariad' Welsh Lovespoon

2010-06-25T01:09:00.000-07:00

Ripping Down the Block on the Band Saw

With the piece of european cherry sawn to the right dimensions, it is time to cut the outline on the scroll saw. A hand fret saw could be used but even with a scroll saw it would be heavy going with a piece of cherry nearly an inch and a half thick.

Heavier going than I thought, because ripping down the block to a thickness the scroll saw could manage and yet still have it thick enough for carving options, resulted in a slightly curved cut from the band saw that I couldn't afford to level without losing desired thickness.

The surface that I attached the pattern to, with spray adhesive, had been planed smooth and straight. The sides were also dressed square with the face. This is worth doing if possible for

a deeply layered carving like this, because it can make some things easier. The uneven face off the band saw, that would now rest on the scroll saw table however, was now not going to make cutting easy.

The one side of the outline was cut successfully even though with less ease than could have been. Surprisingly it only took three blades and only one of those was an actual breakage. During the next session cutting the other side of the outline, I replaced the blade, that I thought would be very dull by now, and started cutting.

Progress was incredibly slow... Could it be that the cherry was even denser in this area of the board ? Or is there a variation in the cutting effectiveness from one blade to another, even of the same type ?.. No and yes... (sort of). The blade you put in back to front, does in fact cut less efficiently than another of the same type!

Another tip is; don't mistake persistence with

sheer unthinking stubbornness, there might be a reason why things don't go as expected other than 'the tools or materials have somehow changed'.

The blade, with brutal force, was made to 'cut' through nearly an inch of, and inch and a half thick board of cherry, with no more teeth available than a rooster, before I decided to change the blade.

Well change it around anyway. I reinserted the now banana shaped blade and continued to cut about half the other side before the 'Flying Dutchman' brand penguin silver#5 blade finally broke. – Are these blades tough or what ? – The rest of the cutting went well.

Half the Outline Cut and the Spoon Profile Marked Out

Having squared the sides, facilitated the laying out the profile of the spoon on one side, which could then be cut off in one piece and used, both as reference and for reassembling the block, prior to cutting and shaping the profile of the spoon. Squaring the sides also makes it easy to gauge lines parallel to the edge, just by gripping a pencil tightly a certain distance from the edge and spacing it with the position of other fingers sliding against the other face as you slide your hand along. Not a lot of layout is always necessary with lovespoons and most of the work is intuitive, with at least some of the planning evolving as the work proceeds. It's still a good idea to plan as much as possible and include as many guides as possible... just expect the unexpected.

With both sides of the outline cut and the profile marked out it's time to reassemble the block with clear packing tape and begin shaping the profile on the band saw. It might have been a good time to drill for all the inside cuts at this point but some of these areas are quite small and I don't trust my drill press to drill accurately to a great depth with a fine bit.

I also want to reduce the thickness of the blank in some places to make cutting easier on the scroll saw, especially if finer blades are used and possibly if a hand fret saw or even piercing saw is needed for tricky spots.

shaping the profile will remove much of the pattern but I'm expecting to do this often, as I go, any way and I can always cut pieces as templates from any extra prints of the pattern

I make along the way ... I don't find re-drawing too much a problem though and If I did, then I would find a way to avoid it.

The reassembled block can be worked on with a hand saw making intersecting straight cuts to remove large volumes of timber in shaping the rough form of the spoon's profile but things are much quicker using the band saw. The band saw makes it easier, not just because it can make curving cuts, but also because it can produce fairly accurate vertical cuts quickly, where you can observe them approaching your marked lines, to be stopped just where you want.

I used a 3 tpi half inch blade, the aggressive cut of which, enabled a nibbling away, by straight cuts, of many of the tightly curved areas. I had a 3mm blade that might have navigated many of the curves but I wasn't sure of cutting four inches of cherry, without a breakage, if a tight spot eventuated.

By taking it slowly and carefully with the large blade, easing the passage of the blade with multiple straight cuts and sometimes cutting a half inch space to allow entry for the blade to make rip cuts, parallel to the long edge, I was able to effectively, if not prettily, shape the profile.

Shaping the Profile on the Band Saw

The blank roughly shaped

The next step will be back to the scroll saw after some pattern cutting and pasting and or re-drawing – plus drilling. The thinner timber to scroll of course comes with the severe under cutting of just that part of the blank, that rests on the scroll saw table. To remedy this I will have to set up a temporary false table on the scroll saw and then, there should be no problem. This could have made things a bit easier cutting out the outline... If i'd thought of it at the time.

Back to 'Cariad' Lovespoon

2010-06-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

'Cariad' welsh lovespoon

At last it's time to get back to the 'Cariad' welsh lovespoon. We had been considering walnut as the timber to carve from and the rich dark colour of the walnut would have suited the design well. However on examining a couple of pieces of walnut that I already had, I was concerned that the grain was a little too open and coarse to carry the intended detail, especially with the canadian geese and the Mt Tryfan Gate.

One of the pieces of walnut was european walnut and the other black walnut, comparing the two I thought that the slightly finer grain of the european walnut might have been suitable but it would have been very tricky for it to hold the amount of detail that would be an important part of this design. Also both boards were barely one inch thick and I felt I would need at least an inch and a quarter and possibly a bit more to be safe with what is to be be a multi-layered carving.

My consequent search for another suitable piece of european walnut only turned up more black walnut (certainly a beautiful timber but not for this project). During the search I found a nice piece of european cherry, almost as dark as walnut but with a more golden hue. The cherry also had the other attributes I was looking for – so far as you can tell by just looking. Subsequent slicing cuts across the grain, which I could do after purchase, tell the story I think.

cherry / walnut comparison

I purchased the, cherry and Dawn and James, my clients who requested the lovespoon, were happy with cherry as a choice. Because my experience is limited, in that I've only used rock maple and walnut for carving lovespoons before, I sort some advice on the use of cherry for carving welsh lovespoons.

I have David Western's Book 'The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons', am an admirer of the innovative directions David has taken the art in his long experience as a professional carver and I have been following his blog

( www.davidwestern.blogspot.com ) which shows the progress of a lovespoon he is jointly designing and carving, by correspondence and by sending the work piece back and forth, with Laura Gorun

( www.BlakesPA.com ), another talented carver of finely delicate lovespoons, in America. So I emailed a request to David, to advise on the choice of cherry in the light of his experience.

David Western kindly shared his knowledge and experience on the use of american cherry, though he hadn't done anything with european cherry. David confirmed my thought that cherry would hold the necessary detail well and added the interesting information that cherry darkens considerably on exposure to light to a rich and mellow tone and takes a beautiful oiled finish. I also seem to remember that walnut actually fades a little on exposure to light .

the selected piece

So I am feeling happy about the choice of the cherry. The next step after timber selection is to bring this board to the appropriate dimensions and then attach the pattern for cutting the outline. In order to arrive at the thickness necessary however, I will first have to place the pattern on top and visualise – even roughly sketch out the possible profile of the whole spoon on the edge of the board to see how much depth is required and also consider how much thickness I am willing to tackle with the scroll saw in a hard wood like cherry . Sometimes however, not everything can be planned beforehand, instead the continuing design process has to be taken by the hand and led by some bold steps into the actual work before a way ahead can be seen. So I will see what lies ahead when I've made a start with the selected piece of timber.

Iron Fence with Sparrows pyrography

2010-06-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

'Iron Fence with Sparrows' is now complete. It only remains to construct a suitable frame.

'Iron Fence with Sparrows' Detail.

Iron fence with Sparrows pyrography

2010-06-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

'Iron fence with Sparrows' is now nearing completion, just a few leaves to finish rendering and some tones to adjust in some areas of the background. Overall there are several aspects that could have been much better and I think that the process of completing this piece has taught me some things that I should be able, to use to do better work next time.

Without enlightening those that don't see the various problems that are apparent to me now, and without goading those that might see them but graciously choose to overlook them, I will mention a few generalities that I am continuing to learn in the process of completing pieces of work and would recommend by way of advice.

1. Apart from starting again, which is sometimes necessary (but also necessarily at an early stage of work) make sure you complete what you are doing to the best of your ability at the time, not the ability you think you have.

2. Don't be tempted to point out to others the faults you see in your work. Just about everyone who makes something does this. I remember reading about a professional painter who talked an otherwise eager customer out of buying one of his works using this tendency.

3. Take note and learn what the medium can and can't do well, design and choose designs that can be rendered well in the medium, pyrography on hoop pine ply in this case.

4. Don't rush thinking things through, you'll end up painting yourself into a corner.

'Iron fence with Sparrows' Pyrography

2010-06-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

Still working on the background with the larger shading nib. I will need to go back in with the finer pointed nib to modify some of the background an unify the textures with some stippling work.

'Iron Fence with Sparrows' Pyrography

2010-05-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

Continuing with 'Iron Fence with Sparrows' I have switched to a large flat shading nib tool to do the background. I hardly ever change tools if I can help it and almost exclusively use a modified writing tip even for shaded areas.

The larger nib is certainly faster and it can still be used in a manner pretty much like stippling, just gently brushing short gliding strokes to build up increasingly darker tones.

I haven't found enough time to get as far as I'd hoped and will need to find a solid block of time to have it ready on time. Even with using the shading tool to speed up the background 'painting' process I will need to go back in with the finer point drawing tool to tidy things up here and there and establish a pleasant interplay of changing textures.

The more complicated area of background at the top and right with the blurred foliage over a darker distant background, still needs to be worked into the composition and this is something I will have to run through my mind as I correct the tones in the background. Then I will be able to tackle the pale subtle shading in the fading roses in the foreground.

'Iron Fence with Sparrows' Pyrography

2010-05-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

I have just commenced work on my next pyrography piece 'Iron Fence with Sparrows', which needs to be completed early to mid June.

The design has been penciled onto the hoop pine ply board and the basic line work has been burned in. The two sparrows have been completed, however the lower, male, sparrow needs some subtle changes around the eye area. This would be enough for me to consider starting again, because the eye isn't convincing enough, but there just isn't time.

There will be some other challenging aspects to this work before it is finished, as I intend to include some large areas of blurred dark tone in part of the background, for an intended chiaroscuro effect, plus some other tricky blurred shading in some other background areas. The pictorial effect will depend much on the success of this, but the eyes of the sparrows are going to be no less important.

2010-05-01T04:40:00.000-07:00

We have returned from our trip and I have made some changes to the 'Cariad' Spoon design.

The suggested canadian geese have been added, the 'D' in Cariad has been lowered a little, the lower part of the celtic knot-work has been made a bit less angular, with fairer curves on the outside strands of the knot-work and the spoon has been lengthened in the neck towards the bowl.

The challenge with the canadian geese will be, to somehow indicate their distinctive markings, just by shadow in the carving. The subtle use of some carefully placed fine engraved lines may, I hope, achieve this. This is a problem to be solved at the carving stage however and will be somewhat contingent on the dictates of the piece of timber used.

When this part of the design is finalised I can design the reverse side consistent with the front and with its own motifs, but a little simpler than the front.

I have another pyrography project to design and complete by mid June and should be able to commence work on the spoon after that.

2010-03-22T01:25:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch of the preliminary design for the 'Cariad' welsh love-spoon, my first commissioned carving. The spoon is for a Canadian and American couple of Celtic descent, ( Irish and Scottish ). It is in memory of their son Roman and loved one (Cariad), a mechanical engineer who had worked in Wales where he had enjoyed hiking and scrambling in the welsh mountains.

The front of the spoon will show, at the top, Mt Tryfan with the sun behind it, carved in shallow relief and enclosed in a ring frame. The iron gate in front of the mountain motif is after an actual gate that can be seen at the foot of Mt Tryfan. The continuous celtic knot represents the couple's celtic background and the mechanical elements; the pinion, gear wheel and connecting rod, signify the mechanical engineering profession.

The Welsh word 'Cariad' carved as insular script letters, roughly translates as 'loved one' and overlays the central portion of the spoon.

Finally the small ring encircling the stem of the spoon above the bowl, represents the 'Iron Ring' which is of particular significance to Canadian engineers and a reminder of their professional responsibilities.

A further element to be added to the design will be the inclusion of canadian geese. This was the suggestion of the couple commissioning the spoon, as they felt a desire for the representation of some living things on the spoon, to balance the mechanical and inorganic elements. They also related to me the unique significance canadian geese had for them after they had given their son a toy canadian goose in token of their connection when he first left home.

This was an excellent suggestion of course, as it will add meaning to the spoon and improve the design as well. The challenge will now be incorporating the new elements. I will be travelling throughout April and hope to be able to post the new design at the end of April.

The Iron Ring worn by canadian engineers can be seen here above the bowl of the spoon.

'Cariad' ( meaning 'loved one' ) in Insular script, placed across the gearwheel and pinion in the centre of the spoon.

Mount Tryfan and the gate at the foot of Mt Tryfan carved in reief at the top of the spoon.

2010-03-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

I've finished 'Eager to Learn' and made the frame. I will soon begin the blog on my first welsh love-spoon commission starting with the preliminary sketch and alterations leading up to a final design.

Here is a full view of 'Eager to Learn' showing the frame made from Eucalyptus viminalis, textured with gouge cuts, stained with potassium permanganate, the high edges of the gouge marks rubbed back a little with rotten stone on an alcohol dampened rag and finished with wax.

2010-03-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

Continuing the rendering of 'Eager to Learn' I'm still using the same nib with short stipple-like strokes. This is not true stippling but the overlaying of short gliding strokes using a low heat and building up the darker areas by continual overlay of the same brushing strokes.

This method seems particularly suited to the representation of fur; short strokes for the mice and longer ones for the longer cat fur.

2010-03-07T00:15:00.000-08:00

I have commenced rendering 'Eager to Learn'.

Again with the same pyrography nib used for laying in the outline, but this time using a relatively low heat, tone is slowly built up on the timber surface, over time, as many passes are made with the pyrography nib until the desired tone and colour are achieved. These tones are then repetitively layered one over the other to achieve increasingly darker tones.

There are no really deeply engraved lines using this technique. Short, 'gliding-across -the-surface' strokes, in a stipple like pattern, gradually polish and darken the timber surface to produce a dark velvet like finish without any furrowed texture which can reflect a little light from the peaks of each furrow wall and reduce the depth of the darkest tones .

2010-03-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

This pyrography work called 'Eager to Learn', has been drawn in graphite pencil directly onto a 3mm thick Hoop Pine Plywood panel 330mm X 420mm and I have commenced burning in the initial line work with the pyrography tool nib that I have shaped and polished from High resistance wire. Hoop Pine, not a true pine, is an Australian timber very soft and also very pale without any open grain or figure. The last two characteristics make it very suitable for pyrography.

2010-03-02T04:27:00.000-08:00

I have been constantly delighted to see examples on the web of stunningly inspiring pieces of work in all kinds of crafts. It is also a delight to witness the enthusiasm shown by people, beginners and expert, in all stages of the journey they are undertaking in their craft. I am especially appreciative of those that generously publish their progress, their processes of design, their methods of work, tools used, mistakes, remedies and successes for the benefit of others. Having benefited so much from this myself I would like to attempt a contribution of the same kind. So I am intending to Show my own progress in various woodcraft projects in this blog, in the hope that you will find it helpful for your own work, or for you to help me with mine. My interest is in many different kinds of woodcraft but in particular the hand-carving of Welsh love-spoons. I am only a beginner at this fine art of love-spoon carving, as I have only made two love-spoons so far. However I'm almost convinced that if ever a craft was the proper domain for beginners, then carving welsh love-spoons was it. Surely love-spoon carving, by the very nature of the case, was mostly carried out by beginners, a labour of love to produce an extravagant gift. I will soon be posting on this blog the beginnings of my first commissioned Welsh love-spoon, so it may seem strange that I am starting with some pyrography work. It is some work that I need to finish soon so that's where I will have to start.