Posts Tagged ‘wood sculpting’
Bursting Hearts
Latest heart shape update: I find myself wrestling in my mind over leaving the natural imbalance of the two sides or working more intently to bring greater symmetry to the piece.
This is from the third large tree that fell last summer: the oak. It can roughly be compared to the size of a soccer ball, and as a result, it is a pretty heavy hunk of wood. Another option I’m keeping in mind is that shrinking it down to reach a more symmetrical shape would likely eliminate the remnants of the inner bark that have yet to be sanded away.
That inner bark does add some unusual aspects to the overall look, but it also obscures the appearance of the classic oak woodgrain that might be hiding just beneath. The next time I get my hands on it, I expect I’ll go with whatever my heart tells me to do next.
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie and I gave our hearts to friends who host an annual Gopher football tailgate party memorial in honor of their daughter, who was a passionate fan.
We didn’t have tickets to the game, so our visit was just for the pre-game festivities. As soon as we located our friends, we were accosted by a loud bear of a guy from an adjacent gathering who kicked over his son’s drink in his zest to wrap us in a wonderful, loving hug.
Our next-door neighbors at the Wildwood lake place up in Hayward were tailgating right beside us. On top of that, Cyndie was able to facilitate a special introduction between the two. Her friend, Lisa, and our Wildwood friend, Tom, had yet to meet in person, even though they had worked remotely together on a memorial garden for Lisa’s daughter.
While we were all enjoying the festivities, it occurred to me that my cycling friend, Doobie, would likely be tailgating, too. I shot off a text to him with our faces in front of the Gophers canopy and learned he was already inside the stadium, volunteering at the M Club. He kindly invited us to join them because they had tickets to spare.
It was an embarrassment of friendship riches.
We had to pass up the chance to watch the game in person because we already had a date for the afternoon with our kids to hang out together for happy hour at a pub conveniently located between their two homes. So, it was a combination of friendship and family riches, for which we are greatly blessed.
We were able to achieve all this fabulous socializing due to the help of local UWRF students, who we have hired as short-term animal sitters for just such occasions.
It’s no wonder I find myself wanting to sculpt bigger-than-life heart shapes. My own is bursting with goodness via the connections with lovely people!
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Creating Sawdust
My arms got a good workout yesterday using a grinder on a “Y” section of the oak tree that fell while we were walking past it during the summer.
I got a good start on it, but there is still a long way to go. While I was working, I had a sense it could be compared to giving a haircut, but that usually gets accomplished in under an hour. I also figured that it could be a little like mowing the lawn, but that frequently gets finished within a day.
My projects sculpting wood tend to last for weeks. I have two more levels of finer-grain discs yet to use with the grinder as I refine the shape more to my liking. Then I will switch to sandpaper to work on smoothing out all the tool marks, eventually working it to a silky finish, revealing the ultimate beauty of the wood grain. Or something like that.
Even though it is just starting to get exciting, I need to take a couple of days off from making further progress on it. I invited myself to tag along with our friend, Mike Wilkus, on an overnight trip up to their cabin. We will be driving up to just north of Grand Rapids this afternoon and, if the weather allows, flying their small plane back home on Wednesday.
Mike has helped us out on numerous occasions over the years, so when I heard he was going to take care of this task alone, it was an easy decision to ask if he wanted a copilot to keep him company. It sounds like tough duty [hee hee], but it’s what a friend would do.
The newest wood heart will be there for me when I return.
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Mirrored Hearts
Progress on the set of mirrored hearts from the oak branch I cut with the bandsaw has come close to even between the two. I’ve never worked on two pieces at the same time like this, so it is a new challenge for me to switch back and forth as the shapes become more refined.
I’m not fully satisfied with either one enough to move from shaping to the highly polished finish sanding that I like to do, but I’m getting close.
On the second heart, I worked initially to shape it with my mini-grinder that has a flexible shaft with sandpaper sleeves that fit over an inflatable drum. It definitely speeds up progress, but doesn’t allow the level of control I prefer, so I soon switched back to hand sanding.
It’s always hard for me to decide I am done shaping, so in this situation, it is doubly hard. I can always find something about the shape I’d like to tweak a little more to get it just right. As a result, pieces never feel completed. Doing two at once is definitely compounding this dilemma for me.
I really like that they are mirrors of each other, and as such, would like them to end up very similar in size, as well. It will be a struggle for me to allow for more than a little variation, but I need to be realistic about it. Thinking about each one as a unique heart will help me to go with the flow of however the ultimate dimensions happen to work out.
The ideal shape is there within each piece. I just need to be patient while letting each one be slowly revealed to me.
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Dream Driven
I haven’t got a clue. I’m feeling a little shaky about trusting my intuition after the dream I experienced last night. It was classic in how real it seemed compared to how obviously unreal it proved to be upon my waking. The way it mixed time and locations should have helped my sleeping mind to recognize it was a fabrication.
It has left me wondering if I will be savvy enough to sense when I am reading a message from a Russian bot or a genuine American citizen with a hairbrained opinion lacking any factual basis. If the President of the United States looks like he is buddying up with Putin, can anything healthy possibly result from it?
My dream had nothing to do with world politics. It involved someone with whom I am close. It involved death.
What is up with that? I’m not sure. I don’t want to delve into it.
Nothing to see here. Carry on.
I spent a little time shaping my latest wood piece yesterday while sitting on the shore of the lake, listening to the sound of the water lapping against the sand.
It is a cutting from the Y of two branches of the oak tree section that crashed to the ground in front of our eyes on an otherwise calm morning. We don’t know why it fell at that time. It was the kind of thing that could have happened in a dream.
As is often my style, I am leaving the bark on one side of my sculpture. I try to come up with words to explain the symbolism I assign to this, but I’m not entirely sure it isn’t just a way to get out of needing to finish all the surface area. Although, a smooth side and a rough side can be a pretty easy metaphor for a lot of things/people/situations.
Meanwhile, I hear the fearful leader has called out our military to control D.C. Talk about a disconnect between some people’s dreams and reality.
The delirium of this kind of thing happening in our country is a travesty. No wonder I find myself drawn to intense focus on precisely shaping a heart out of the solid wood of an old oak tree, bringing out the splendor of the beautiful woodgrain.
The symbol of a classic heart shape is a universal representation of love, and genuine love is the only thing that will get us out of any mess the world is in. When enough people of influence get around to fully embracing that, we might see that our best dreams can actually come true.
My dream last night has me wanting to soak up as much of my immediate reality as possible today. Maybe even hug the ones I love. Retune the vibrations of my intuition. Hold a heart-shaped piece of an oak tree and feel its strength and the love it symbolizes.
It’s our last full day at the lake this weekend. We drive home tomorrow morning.
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Anniversary Heart
We received an invitation to a 25th wedding anniversary party for our friends, Joyce & Doobie Kurus, which inspired me to start a new heart sculpture before I finished the one already in progress. A little interlude for a change of pace.
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I chose a piece of American Hornbeam that I have been looking forward to working with for a long time. When we cut up this downed tree I saved much of it in the barn and shop for future use because the shape and grain were so enticing.
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Like so many times before, I was drawn to retain some of the raw bark to provide contrast to the other highly finished surface area.
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The wood was great to work with and has me very excited for the next opportunity when I will be able to sculpt another piece of the American Hornbeam I have stashed away.
I appreciated having Joyce and Doobie’s special occasion to think about while I worked on this heart. Somehow, I let myself start on another inspiration before getting back to my melting heart out of a piece of maple, so I currently have two in process at the same time, neither of them out of American Hornbeam. I’m experimenting with creating a shape that reflects a twisted heart.
If I like what comes of this first attempt, I hope to try a larger version from Hornbeam. All while simultaneously seeking to make progress on the tricky part of my melting heart.
Making all these hearts has got to be adding to the love that exists in the world. I don’t really need any more inspiration than that.
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Plans Change
I changed my mind. I wasn’t going to show my latest sculpture project until I was done but apparently, I’ve used up all my patience trying to train Asher lately. I’m not waiting any longer. It may seem like an illogical time of year to begin an idle pleasure that has the potential to occupy many hours when spring growth is happening faster than can be managed in a day.
Since when is artistic whim logical?
The trigger for me was the accommodating weather allowing me to work outdoors on creating wood shrapnel and sanding dust. I decided to see if there might be a heart shape hiding in this Y-section of a maple tree we cut down at some point.
It’s lopsided, so I’m trying to decide if I’m feeling moved to compensate for that or let it remain imperfectly balanced.
I chose to give it more attention yesterday because the air quality was poor due to Canadian wildfires and I didn’t want my lungs to suffer from my panting away on a bicycle. Since the air made wearing a mask worthy, I figured I might as well work on something that is incredibly dusty.
I hesitate to reveal the vision I have for the bottom portion because I don’t have a firm plan on how I will accomplish it. Maybe if I state it, doing so will add incentive for me to keep after it, one way or another.
I hope to achieve the appearance of a melting heart. There are so many times when I feel moved to say that something melts my heart. A visual representation makes sense to me.
Somehow, I will need to try to fit the next level of sculpting in between mowing and trimming sessions, because if I stop now, I may never finish. It would get added to my trophy case of umpteen other art projects that I started but have yet to complete. I’m guessing this risk is why I was considering not talking about the melting heart until it was actually a thing.
Well, self, the plan has changed and the challenge accepted.
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Another Heart
I believe my latest heart sculpture from a section of one of our pine trees has reached completion, at least as far as I’m feeling moved to take it.
The wood color has a lot of grey to it. More than I expected. The top view shows the star pattern radiating from the center.
There is another view of that center down toward the point at the opposite end of the heart.
I intentionally aimed to avoid having the exact tip be aligned with the center, partially hoping it might reveal a more interesting wood grain. The result did not “wow” me as much as I hoped it could.
One primary feature of the sculpture that the photo is not able to adequately convey is the tactile pleasure of feeling the hefty weight and glossy smoothness of the contoured shape. In the case of this piece made of pine, that feature is more rewarding than the visual of the colors, grain patterns, and knots.
The end result of having created this heart out of pine is that I now have a strong desire to return to a chunk of ash wood for my next sculpting project.
Also, I was very interested in working on a piece where I finish the whole thing without leaving a portion natural. Having done that, I find I have a strong urge to consider a return to my old ways. That is something I can decide when I settle on the piece of wood and a potential shape that will become the result of my next inspiration.
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Changing Shape
Speaking of carving hearts, I already had one started out of pine before I cut up that tree on Saturday. Given the excellent weather conditions for being outside, I spent a little time over the weekend trying to figure out what particular shape of heart this one was going to become.
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If you know me, deciding is not one of my favorite things to do.
Initially, I chose to let the features of the chunk of pine determine how things would proceed, based on the arbitrary initial chainsaw cuts when the tree was felled. Unmoved by the result I was getting, I sought out the opinion of my best advisor.
Cyndie thought it was too long and too thick. I decided she was right because that’s what I was thinking, too.
A little reshaping was in order.
We both like this better. You can’t tell by the pictures but I flattened it out as much as I shortened the length.
It still needs some refinement before I settle in and change focus to polishing out the tool marks, but now I feel happy enough with the shape to enjoy the rest of the exercise.
I find the process as addictive as jigsaw puzzling. When I finish one, all I want to do is start another.
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Necessary Evil
One of the tasks I tend to delay more than any others is cutting down trees. There are times it needs to happen and times it probably should happen, but I struggle with knowing when an ailing tree honestly has no future. I usually choose to rely on time to make the status obvious.
Waiting comes at the expense of a perfect landscape view. Cyndie admitted to not enjoying the scene out across the deck that, from her vantage point, was always filled with the brown needles of another dying pine tree. I respect that.
Yesterday, we dispatched the fading relic. A necessary evil.
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Of course, I saved a portion of the trunk to serve as a platform for balanced rock art.
While I was at it, I also trimmed a section that looked like it had potential to become a future heart sculpture.
Do you see the beautiful pine heart hiding inside there that I see?
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New Heart
It’s difficult to do a sculpture justice with a couple of two-dimensional images, but taking pictures of my projects allows me to keep a record of pieces that won’t stay in my possession forever. With that, I took these photos yesterday to chronicle the finished product of my latest woodworking endeavor.
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As I am wont to do, I’ve left the backside natural bark and shaped and polished the front into a heart shape from a piece of ash where the tree forked into two branches.
Completing this latest heart has inspired me to start over right away with another wood sculpting project from the variety of wood chunks I’ve stockpiled in the shop, salvaged from trees we’ve cut down over the years. I have a rough idea of what I feel like making next, but that vision will merge with the features of the wood I select to ultimately determine what emerges in the end.
Most often, when I put my heart into it, that is the shape that results.
I’m completely okay with that.
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Relative Something 