Trumpety-Thing Base

 

Quite a few years ago, we found a pair of trumpet-like brass things in some antique-junk shop.

I assume they're supposed to be vases or something. We have no idea of where they came from, nor how old they are. Both of them are somewhat damaged, but neither beyond the bounds of displayability.

Both of them were missing their original bases, so today I turned one. I think it's matai. I'll get around to the other one, one of these days.

Next day...

Well, one of these days turned out to be this day.

The other piece of matai (?) I had turned out to be full of splits and a nail, so, bugger.

I therefore turned the second plinth in white oak, and ebonized it with iron acetate.

The piece was only 40mm thick compared with the matai's 50mm, so I did the oak one in two pieces (with a 10mm base plate to bring it up to 50mm) and glued and screwed them together.

It doesn't bother me in the least that they're not identical, so that's good.

Kwila Cup

 

I was fossicking about in amongst my boxes of off-cuts, and found a bit of kwila left over from a project years and years ago. I carved it down to roughly cylindrical, slapped it on the lathe, and made this little cup.

It is very little, only 50mm in diameter and 40mm tall. I don't know what it would be useful for, other than looking at. It might serve as a whisky bowl or something, though I don't know how good kwila is for that sort of purpose.

I gave it a stepped bowled bottom so that it would catch the light a bit more interestingly than would a flat or fully bowled bottom.

Manaia woodblock - WiP

 

I'm working on a simple MDF woodcut. The image area is roughly A6.

It'a manaia motif.

There are a couple or three colour blocks still to come, though I have only the vaguest idea at this stage what I'm going to do with it. Doubtless something will happen.

This is a watercolour colour test to be going on with.
It may or may not end up having any relation to this.

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Some test prints, plus the colour sketch at far left. I'm happy enough with the foreground orange, but the background green needs a bit more blue in it, and be more transparent to let the white of the paper glow through.

Here I've experimented with a gradient across the top of the background colour (image on the right). I like it I think, even though the photo is 100% arse-drool. Worth pursuing.

This blue gradient is better than the raw sienna I think; it's cleaner and richer, and gives the background the depth that it needs.

Benches

 

These are what I've been working on for the last little while — a pair of slab benches for some people over the road. The seats are slabs of macrocarpa, supplied by the clients, while the legs are built up in horrible treated pine. They're going to slather them with some sort of preservative oil stain, which should make the difference in timber colour less apparent.

The second one went much faster than the first, once I'd worked out what I was doing.

Pen Nib Holder

 

I made another pen nib holder, again in oak, again for a Speedball C-6, but this time I ebonized it with iron acetate. Nice.

This one is a tad longer than the last, being about 200mm to the tip of the nib.