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Some of My Arts and Crafts

Started by Dark Lightning, September 21, 2018, 12:51:47 AM

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Dark Lightning

In response to Icarus' request to see some of my wood carving, I'll present some here. I also smith a bit of copper; I'll lump it in here, too; thus the title. I hope these don't come out monstrous in size.

This is a Tree Spirit carved in the shape of a grape leaf. One of my early projects. It's made from tupelo wood, so it was a real challenge, as it takes special knives that I didn't have. I found out about those knives after I was done. Tupelo is more appropriate for power carving, which I have not attempted yet. While it is a "wood spirit", it holds no mystical value for me. I just like it.



Here is a votive candle holder. It is probably my second project since I started taking classes.



Here is a figure carved in the flat plane style made popular by a gent named Harley Refsal.



This is it for now. I want to see how these post up before I do too many more and have to repair a lot of them.

jumbojak

That wood spirit looks really sharp. Very nice work.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Dark Lightning

Thanks! I went and looked through my pictures of projects. Guess I better line up a few and take some pics!

hermes2015

Great work. Are they your designs or are they from another source? I'm sure you find it a therapeutic activity that takes your mind of any current worries.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dark Lightning

Quote from: hermes2015 on September 21, 2018, 04:38:24 AM
Great work. Are they your designs or are they from another source? I'm sure you find it a therapeutic activity that takes your mind of any current worries.

Thanks! The first and third are from tutorials in books. The second is my own "invention". I can assure you that I consider taking a tool in hand and cutting into the wood as genuinely therapeutic! It's a person, a tool and an idea of what has to be done. Further, it is a nice, quiet activity. I love doing it. Some people come to the carving class with electrically powered chisels, and I just get agitated. :(  And then there are those who have to get into politics. Yeesh. You wouldn't believe how much I detest that cheeto von tweeto was elected. I don't like his competition, either, but dayam. OK, enough politics, sorry.

hermes2015

I did jewellery (real silversmithing, not bead work) before I retired and found it therapeutic as well. Another therapeutic activity is wedging clay, which is the process of preparing the clay for ceramic work.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dave

#6
I really like your Tree Spirit, kind of 'Green Man' or 'Jack-of-the-green'. As these things go though it is a pagan thing it is iften found csrved in old churches. The latter is also a Morris Dance Mummer play character.

I too used to make silver jewellery but, unfortunately, now find such detail work causes tension in me rather than relaxation. The relaxion bit comes when the job is finished without accident! Though things like Hermes' clay prep (is that the cutting, stacking and folding thing to get a homogenous lump?) might be good.

Is there a technique with coloured clays of layering, stretching, cutting, stacking and folding,  bit like geologicsl strata folding, until a satisfying result is obtained. That sounds good to me!

Later: oops, confused my ethnic based performance art types!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Icarus

I am a long time model maker.  At one time I did models of things such as electric  power plants or concrete batching machinery, and traffic layouts for court cases.  Nowadays I mostly do model boats, some of them radio controlled and functional. 

A while back I was playing with one of my RC boats at a local park that had a lake.  Some old jackass accosted me and accused me of being in my second childhood.  My reply was that it was a better hobby than pissing off other old men who are creative as opposed to the exercise of destructive commentary. Little did he know that I was doing some hydrodynamic experiments that would have been beyond his comprehension.

Doing delicate, precise, and even artistic things with wood or other materials is most satisfying.  I once had a friend who was a wood carver who did the most difficult of projects such as a human hand.  He was a manufacturer of orthopedic appliances and he knew his anatomy.  His skill with a carving knife was a beautiful thing to observe. I have no such skills but I do know how to cut and measure wooden or metal parts with considerable precision. .




hermes2015

Quote from: Dave on September 21, 2018, 06:29:39 AM
I really like your Tree Spirit, kind of 'Green Man' or 'Jack-of-the-green'. As these things go though it is a pagan thing it is iften found csrved in old churches. The latter is also a Morris Dance character.

I too used to make silver jewellery but, unfortunately, now find such detail work causes tension in me rather than relaxation. The relaxion bit comes when the job is finished without accident! Though things like Hermes' clay prep (is that the cutting, stacking and folding thing to get a homogenous lump?) might be good.

Is there a technique with coloured clays of layering, stretching, cutting, stacking and folding,  bit like geologicsl strata folding, until a satisfying result is obtained. That sounds good to me!

There are different wedging techniques to prepare the clay. Most wheel throwers use spiral wedging, very much like kneading bread dough. It does two things: it removes air pockets and it increases the workability of the clay for wheel work. My favourite wedging technique is the cut and slam style, where you cut the lump of clay into two equal pieces with a wire cutter. You then lift up one piece above your head and slam it down on the other with great force to merge them into one again, with the cut side facing outward. I used to repeat this at least 15 times, sometimes on a 20 to 30 Kg lump of clay. This caused me to develop very strong shoulders and arms that looked good in tank tops and helped attract new "friends" when I went clubbing. That was another therapeutic benefit, but let's not go there now.

Yes, one can form strata or even get a mille fiori effect with different colours.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

xSilverPhinx

I'm impressed, Fireball Dark Lightining!  8) I especially like the leaf-shaped Tree Spirit.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dark Lightning

Quote from: Icarus on September 21, 2018, 06:39:03 AM
I am a long time model maker.  At one time I did models of things such as electric  power plants or concrete batching machinery, and traffic layouts for court cases.  Nowadays I mostly do model boats, some of them radio controlled and functional. 

A while back I was playing with one of my RC boats at a local park that had a lake.  Some old jackass accosted me and accused me of being in my second childhood.  My reply was that it was a better hobby than pissing off other old men who are creative as opposed to the exercise of destructive commentary. Little did he know that I was doing some hydrodynamic experiments that would have been beyond his comprehension.

Doing delicate, precise, and even artistic things with wood or other materials is most satisfying.  I once had a friend who was a wood carver who did the most difficult of projects such as a human hand.  He was a manufacturer of orthopedic appliances and he knew his anatomy.  His skill with a carving knife was a beautiful thing to observe. I have no such skills but I do know how to cut and measure wooden or metal parts with considerable precision. .

Heh, there's nothing anyone can do but someone will find fault with it! If I had a boat, I'd just drive it around. I was more in the electromagnetic end of things at my old job for several years (antennas and low observable technology). I got tired of the runaround I was getting, so I transferred to a mechanical job for the last 14 years of my "career".

I'm not that good with carving yet. I won't give up just because I'm not as good as some of the people I see carving. I am just where I am on the spectrum of skill, and I'm OK with that. It has taken me a lifetime to learn patience.

Dark Lightning

Quote from: hermes2015 on September 21, 2018, 06:10:35 AM
I did jewellery (real silversmithing, not bead work) before I retired and found it therapeutic as well. Another therapeutic activity is wedging clay, which is the process of preparing the clay for ceramic work.

There is a ceramics class that runs at the same time as my carving class, so I can't get in there. That looks pretty easy-going. Also, if one takes too much off when working clay, it can be put back on, unlike wood, which can sometimes be put back on, but depending on how the figure is finished, the glue will likely show.

Dark Lightning

More stuff, now with metal-

Meet Petunia, the pink pig (so named by my wife). It's made from a propane tank that had the proof date expire. Since we seem to have accumulated half a dozen of them, this on got sacrificed to the torch. The feet are from an old metal swing.



Here is a rose and vase made of copper that I made for my wife for xmas about 8 years ago. Purple is her favorite color. The colors of the vase, both the brown and green are made using a process called cold patination, which is a controlled oxidation. The rose was patinated with a warm process.




Next is a dodecahedron made from copper strips bent to shape and soldered together. I got the idea from a book titled "The Golden Ratio" by Mario Livio. I was traveling for work and domiciled away from my family for many months at a time, and had time for some hobby work with minimal tools. Patinated with the chlorine given off by household bleach (for the lighter copper chloride green) and ammonia gas (for the dark green). In keeping with the picture on the cover of the book, I put some sea shells with it. The sea shells closely follow the Golden Ratio in the way that they grow. The dodecahedron is sprayed with clear matte lacquer in case someone touches it, as it is pretty nasty- in powdered form it is used as an insecticide.


Dave

Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Dark Lightning

Quote from: Dave on September 22, 2018, 03:09:26 AM
^

I am impressed!

Thanks!
That dodecahedron was a real sweetheart to solder together, sitting on the stove in the efficiency apartment I was renting at the time. I was in Florida, and if the summer heat and humidity weren't bad enough, I had to heat ALL the copper to solder the pieces together. Copper is such a good conductor that the thing had to be supported the whole time at each joint, since each new solder joint required enough heat to melt the previously soldered joints. Got a couple of burns before I finally settled on wooden clothespins to hold the previous joints together. Then the clothespins started smoking!  :???: Originally, I was going to bury the thing in beach sand that was saturated with sea salt to start the corrosion process, but carrying a couple of cubic feet of water-saturated sand the 1/4 mile back to my place just wasn't going to happen. I did hang it in the screened-in porch for a couple of weeks, which did get some greenish corrosion started, but then I had to move to new digs, so I just gave up and bought a plastic tote. The patination process took about a week for the bleach, and overnight for the ammonia. NB- if you are using strong ammonia, don't stand directly over a large container that has liquid all the way across the bottom! I nearly fainted from the smell when I opened the tote to inspect the thing. What an ignominious fate that would have been, death by ammonia gas inhalation. I used to work in the HAZMAT business, and if one walks into a strong ammonia atmosphere from a large leak, the ammonia will kill you by robbing the water out of your lungs, and will leave a wizened corpse. yeesh.