Hello again, I used to be quite regular at writing my blog, but these days its when I get in the mode of writing instead of carving that I tend to put my thoughts down.
It has been quite a hard couple of weeks due to my chronic illnesses and the weather being crap!
I have still managed to do some carving though and even got some painting done. But boy, it has been tough, completing the household tasks that "need" to be done. Managing the animal needs, and even the compulsory maintenance on my body through exercising has been hampered recently. It's just gets too hard and overwhelming at times.
I am definitely in the zone and NEED that time away when being creative, especially with wood work. It is my mindfulness & relaxation. It is why I like carving and don't find it a chore. On the other hand .... housework is definitely a chore and is gets harder to keep on top of things with a flare up, or just experiencing annoying problems because of my health issues.
I was once very house proud, but have learnt to look away and prioritise things now. It has taken many years to accept the way things are. Even after 15 years, I still find it difficult to fully acknowledge that I am at a disadvantage and now have my shortcomings due to my chronic illnesses.
With that said, I have still managed to be creative, albeit somewhat subdued.
Recently I saw some strawberry shaped plates and really liked the idea of trying a strawberry shaped dish. I wanted the dish to focus on the strawberry itself but thought it looked a little plain, so I added the flower.
I totally enjoyed carving the dish and the design came out really well too. So I went ahead and made a few more. Four in total, 2 small & 2 a bit larger. I was excited to start the painting process, but kept myself in check to finish the carved pieces properly by sanding and adding some burnt details using the pyrography tool. Feeling unwell lengthened the waiting process to see the dishes painted that beautiful strawberry red colour. It was frustrating being unable to hasten the completion of these strawberries. But I now have given the strawberries 3 coats of red paint. The flowers and leaves still need to be finished though. Then they need to be varnished. Thankfully the weather is now above 10 degrees so hopefully I can finish them off sometime soon.
Because I was seeing red and live in the cherry capital of Young NSW, I decided to carve some cherries as well. I don't quite know about this design. As it is, it looks as little strange, but I think once it is sanded & painted that nice cherry red it will come across better. As I am unsure about this design I have only carved the one to see how it all goes before I decide to do any more.
The rose shaped dishes that have taken so long to get completed are now in the painting stage. I have only finished the one. Which I wasn't even planning on painting that day, but I didn't want to waste the paint that I had left on the palette. So the yellow/ orange dish got painted. These rose shaped dishes do come up really well when painted because you can see the individual petals of the rose. Especially when I use the white pearlescent paint. It adds a lovely shimmer to the tips of the petals. Now I just have to get it together to paint the other two rose shaped dishes and get them all finished. I do have a couple of finished rose shaped dishes available on my website now if you are interested.
As you can see I am really enjoying carving the shaped dishes and since chickens are popular I tried a simple chicken shaped dish. I added a few flowers on her neck to make her look pretty . I didn't know how the flowers would look carved, but so far so good. It will be interesting to see how these dishes turn out once sanded & painted.
When I posted the recently carved chicken dish on social media, it got me thinking about the colours. Soooooo many choices, and I was unsure of what colour to choose. So.... I decided to carve another chicken dish to limit the choices!!! I know it sounds strange, but when you have 4 colours and only one thing to paint you lessen the odds so to speak when you have 2 things to paint with 4 colours.
Anyway...... now its 2 colours to choose for 2 chicken dishes!!!
Now, as I had carved a chicken, and fairy wrens are a popular Australian bird, I tried out a fairy wren shaped dish with some flowers. Again I have only carved just the one to see how he goes. I also think, or hope, that this one will look better once painted.
Lastly and only yesterday, I received an unusual request to carve some "rat heads", yes you read that correctly- rat heads!
Well, not your average rat head but these sort of cute shaped heads. This one was just a prototype to see how difficult it was to carve. But as I expected, it wasn't that hard. What made it even better was that the client already had the design and photos for me to copy, so I really didn't need to do anything apart from the cut out and carving process, which was awesome !
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Well that's all from me,
Keep on creating
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