Descending Ashtray

Merry Christmas! This is a chess set that I made for my brother Zeb. When my brother and I were very young, our father made us a similar chess set and taught us how to play. We loved it! We would play for hours. But somehow over time original set was lost. This is a recreation (as close as I can remember) of the set our father made.

Here is a flower that I have been working on. This thing was very time consuming for how simple it looks. I do not think that I have ever used the Dremmel tool as much as I have on this piece. The petal is made up of five different pieces that have been cut and sanded to compound miters. Then as I sanded and shaped the inside surface I would glue them together then sand the outside surface after. To sum it up; it was hard! This was actually the second attempt the first did not survive.

After a minor mishap with a Flexcut knife (broke the handle) and a Sunday spent carving, I’ve completed this year’s Santa carving: a Northwest Native-American-inspired Christmas Totem Pole. I tried to incorporate stylistic elements of the coastal carving tradition, to varying degrees of effectiveness. I really like the simple color scheme, as well as the additional elements added as separate pieces of wood (Frosty’s nose, Rudolph’s antlers). I’m not so crazy about my grasp of the NW style, but I think my grandmother will like it better this way, in a somewhat folk/somewhat NW style.

I used the vinegar/steel wool treatment as a way to age and weather the yellow cedar a bit - at first it turned a scary brown, but greyed as it dried, to a color that actually mimics red cedar a little more closely (the traditional wood used in totem poles). I then used diluted gouache in red, white and black, which I sanded lightly to reveal the wood beneath in some places, giving it an aged appearance. The nose and antlers are doweled on.

Anybody find my cutting board yet? I’ve posted it this month sometime, although it’s a bit hard to find!

I’m not so good at reading German, but this sculpture by Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Peiz is pretty amazing.

Faithful readers will know of my weakness each December for Santa carvings. Each year, I try to carve something new for my Grandma Selden, who collects Santas.

I had some Alaskan Cedar laying around, some Northwest carving tools … and it sounded like fun. A Christmas totem pole, featuring Santa, Rudolph, and of course, Frosty.

I’ve been carving for about 6 hours on this thing, and it’s really coming along. I think another push this weekend should finish things up. I’m planning on adding some antlers to Rudolph, and a carrot for Frosty’s nose. A carrot made of wood, of course.

I’m thinking of limiting the paint to red, black, and possibly white, which are the traditional totem pole colors. Maybe green, too, but I want to keep it pretty simple and let quite a bit of the wood come through, although I have also been thinking of weathering the wood a little with some diluted vinegar-steel wool mixture.

It sometimes feels like my shop is nothing but a collection of tools and unfinished projects - I tend to get very excited about starting things, and not so much about finishing them. But today, I completed a sculpture I started over a year ago, my Totem Study, shown here in front of a wedding chest I made for my sister. I just put a coat of oil on both of them, which is why they look a little wet; they are.

I also started work today on another carving, which I’ll post tomorrow. I made very good progress, but I want to do a few more things on it tomorrow before showing it in progress.