Through the looking glass

After Friday's sneaky peek I thought I would come back with a few more shots and a little description of the latest mirror.

This mirror is a wedding gift commissioned for the bride and groom by family friends. The bride had two stipulations a butterfly and Yew. She and her husband love Yew, obviously smart people with good taste!

Yew is simply stunning though a bit less stunning to work with! It is a beautiful, rich, (this example is also locally felled and milled) timber that seems to emit warmth from its orange and burnt sienna hues. The colours you see now will, with time, deepen and darken. 

The wood was mitered, shaped, and sanded to produce this...

The butterfly was carved from lime, gessoed and then painted with gold and highlighted with this amazing product from Henderson Art shop in Stockbridge.

Hope you're all tucking into (or have had) some yummy pancakes

xxx

Butterfly Thursday

I am currently carving and decorating a butterfly for my latest mirror.

Here's a bit of a step by step in photos...

        

       

Carving and turning

Good Morning,

Sorry it's been a bit quiet here haven't been feeling particularly inspired of late however (touch wood) I'm finding the love of all things wood related again. I'm not sure if it's the sunshine finally showing it's pretty little face, my little carving project or turning my hand to some turning that's done it but I feel a whole lot more excited about the prospect of the workshop.

There is something immensely satisfying and relaxing about carving it requires patience, fine tuning and precision. I also like the history behind it, for years and across the world people have sat and whittled and carved and created beautiful, highly intricate things from stone, wood, shell and bone. I am always awed when I see the beautiful work done by indigenous communities in far flung corners of our wonderful planet. My lovely friends Matt and Sam have introduced me to the amazing carved pieces of work done in PNG. (They are there now and I miss them terribly). I also just received the most lovely carved elephant from South Africa (thank you C and R).

I also turned an egg. Random I know but i've promised my mum for so long that I would do this. The problem? Some fear held me back, I have turned and I love doing it and if I could have my own lathe I think that this all I would do. But I hadn't touched the lathe in about a year and some stupid fear of not being able to do it stopped be getting back on the horse...so to speak. However under the patience and skilled eye of Sandy Burns I did turn a laburnum egg...maybe now I can move on to bigger things... baby steps though!

Pictures soon.

With love from little acorns xxx