Easter Cross #1

Here is Easter Cross #1 sold at auction last fall at church 

Tsunami

Latest band saw box 

Holy family

My Rose Box

This was a present for my mother-in-law

My wood gear clock

It is finished! "Lion and the Lamb" woods used are Aspen, Teak, Walnut, Sycamore, Bubinga, Mahogany, Maple, Ebony, and Shedua. This was fun and challenging piece and I will be entering it in the State Fair. This one of my very favorite piece's I have done and am looking forward to giving to a very special Lady who bought it in our Church Youth Gala this past spring. glad she is a patient person. Anyway thanks for looking and hope you like it .

Making some good progress I was up at 5:00 am today. worked all morning shaping the lions head, and body. I think it went rather well and is starting to turn into one of my favorite pieces. I love the look of the teak used in the mane the grain is really nice and represents hair pretty well.

Here is a look from the side showing a little more of the depth of this piece.

And here is a pic of the eye detail I was a little nervous about the shaping but I think I got it captured fairly well.

Well a little more progress tonight, I cut the pieces for the lamb (all but the eyes) Starting to look like something now. I'm excited to see this piece come together, still a ton of work here to do. This will be a very interesting piece to shape. I think I will be able to give this piece a lot of dimension, and depth, can't hardly wait until I get to shaping that mane!!
  I googled Lion and the Lamb and looked at a lot of images of others work on the same piece they all look great, but quite different from mine,  well you will just have to go see for yourself. The lady who commissioned this piece has graciously told me she will let me borrow it once I am done and enter it in the State Fair of Texas. Really hard to believe its been almost a year since I posted items here that I entered in last years state fair.

OK 2 posts in one night... I have started on "Lion and the Lamb" I have finished cutting out the Lion and have a good pic of the head so thought I would post it.
So far I have  2 shades of Teak dark (mane ) and yellow (muzzle), Walnut, Mahogany, Aspen, Maple, Ebony, and Sycamore.

Well I finished a piece called "Summer Daze" it was quite a challenge to get it right, different for what I am used to doing. The shaping of the chair just was tuff to do and get right but I made it through. It was a fun piece and my fav parts are the flip flops. Overall I am happy with the piece but it's not my favorite, which might explain why it took me 3 months to finish. Anyway I have already started on another piece the "Lion and the Lamb" both pieces were sold in the Youth Gala this past spring.

Wow I can't believe it's was January since my last post... not sure where the time goes. Anyway I started a new Intarsia project called "Summer Daze" it was a piece I sold at our youth gala fundraiser. I'll post pics along the way. Not sure why... no one is following this blog anyway but maybe someday I'll keep up better and someone will follow it, we will see.

I won! I won! I won! I won! Not a major award but I submitted a scroll saw tip to Scrollsaw Woodworking and Craft magazine and won Top Tip and my tip was published in the spring addition. They told me I had won 2 prizes a Dragon and a Motor Kit.... not sure what either of those are I assume the Dragon is a pattern but not sure about the Motor Kit.. i'll let you know when they arrive.

I also started on my other "Eagle " but won't get finished with it until after we get back from Vegas and seeing my granddaughter. As soon as I finish that I and going to start on a wooden gear clock more on that in some later posts (shhhh the wife doesn't know about that yet) she never reads the blog so not really worried. Till next time!

Been a little slow to blog this fall seems i'm so busy barely have time to keep up but here is the other "Remembering Rose" Angel I made and sold in this years Fall Festival. You can see the very before pics below when I was picking the wood.  I know the lady who bought her will be happy and will give her a good home to watch over.

I have another "Eagle" to make but doesn't look like I will get it done by Christmas, called my customer he understood but I don't like to do that just don't think I can work it in.

Finished another "Eagle" it was bought to give as a Christmas present and it turned out well. The unnamed lady who bought this was very pleased. I have another one to make by Christmas for another customer.

But, for now I have to make another "Remembering the Rose" that I sold in the Fall Festival. Busy time of year. anyway here are some pics of the very first stages of an Intarsia project. You can see i have cut all the pattern pieces out and now have to select the wood for the project. I will use Aspen for the dress, White Sycamore for the skin, Purple-heart for the shawl part of the dress, Butternut for the bench, Quilted Maple for the wings, Bubinga and Poplar for the flower and wings, and Pad-auk for the hair.

Well I thought I would put up a couple of pics of the our kitchen remodel, we got new counter tops last week and I spent most of today installing the back splash on the sink side of the kitchen will put the stove side up tomorrow. We also installed a new composite granite sink, new faucets and garbage disposal, switch  and outlet cover plates as well as all new electric outlets and switch's. A new window sill is also on the to do list.
We choose Wilsonart laminate over the other types of counter tops mostly because of the expense, and I think it looks great! We had some install issues but the installers are taking care of it. The glass and stone mosaic came from Costco. Still need to grout and am a week or so from finishing but we are excited to see it come along.

Just a little follow-up for "Remembering the Rose" it sold at auction (with all proceeds going to the missions fund) for 1000.00 and I now have to make another as the losing bidder will donate her last bid of 800.00 for one. I certainly feel honored to have made something that brought that much for such a good cause.

Back to new after a couple of weeks down with the creeping crud, finally got back into the shop.... right before I got sick I started cutting "Remembering Rose". I am making it for my church's Fall Festival and worked all day on it yesterday trying to finish it so I could have for the "preview" which was today and I just made it in time. So here she is...made from Aspen, Sycamore, Ambrosia Maple, Quilted Soft Maple, Purple-heart, Padauk, Bubinga, and Walnut. she is about 16" x 16" and has about 75 pcs.

It's my blog so i guess I can rant a little. What the hell is wrong with people? I went to wash the wifes car today and there were 2 young men at the carwash having some kind of  car stereo war, neither of which had any taste for good music. Both were young white guys playin' like they were some kinda gangster or something, saggin ass pants music so loud the vacuums couldn't cover it. I am all for personal freedom, and I played my music loud when I was young but I tried not offend others. I do have a right to go to a public place and not subjected to someone else's crap profane music. What do you do though... say something and get shot? Just got out of there as quick as I could and moved on.

Finished the Eagle! I am really proud of the way it turned out! I told my customer I almost refunded her money and kept it myself.:) 

I was able to work on the Eagle today and I made some great progress, I finished sanding, glued it to the backer board, and was able to get a good coat of danish oil on it. I think it looks great. Got to make one of these for myself some time. This is the second one I have made... the first one sold in about 2 hrs after I had it for sale so I never really got to look at it for awhile, I had some pics but believe me they don't do justice to a piece like this. The walnut in this piece is so very cool lots of grain and color variation, you really need to see it up close. I also really like the way the ambrosia maple looks as the slightly lighter color under the neck and on the upper part of the tail.