Back in the swing, almost

Hi all,
I've been trying to keep up with my wife's requests for improvements in the garden, one of which included relaying 9 wonky slabs. It isn't the sort of work I enjoy at my age and it has left me a bit on the wrong side of knackered. Anyway, the worst is over now so I'm hoping to get back to a bit of crafting.

The weather is warming up and last year I enjoyed doing a bit of wod carving cum whittling whilst enjoying the sun in our back garden. My wife said she wouldn't mind another shelfie, so whilst have a tea break during the slab laying process I drew one that I would like to make. The following day I even managed to make a rough model of it out of Plastacine.

If you are thinking of taking up woodcarving it really is worth making a model  from Plastacine before you start cutting wood and making mistakes.

You can see that this shelfie is going to be an old chap from years gon by. I can imagine him sitting on the dock of the bay waiting for relatives coming over to America to live the dream with him.

I like big hats on my shelfies and the long tailed coat at the back will help with the stability and and balance when it is sitting on the shelf. I am looking forward to carving it over the next few weeks.

I have also got a lump of wood on my lathe that I'm going to turn into a vase with a turquoise inlay; so that should be fun.

Other than that I'm still painting on the ipad and need to catch up with a couple of videos. I my last Blog I posted the wrong picture of the video I had uploaded so I have corrected that. If you want to take a look here it is. In it you will see how I created a painting of some harebells and a butterfly.

Trellis

Hi all,
I'm afraid I haven't done any woodturning or carving this week because my wife has had me busy in the garden. Our neighbours cut down a lovely big hedge that gave us a lot of privacy.  Despite us putting up a new tall fence we still had a view of other people's washing and trampolines.

Here is picture that shows the hedge on the right.

To get some privacy back we decided that I would build a free standing trellis a couple of feet from the fence. This would be covered by growing the very rampant Belvedere rose over it.
Here is the trellis.

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You can see how this will work, even without the rose it feels a lot better to not be overlooked. Digging the holes for the posts was the hardest bit of the job. I enjoyed cutting all the lathes because it gave me a chance to use the cheap chopsaw I got recently from screwfix. Very good it was too.

Anyway, I've had little time for anything creative except for a bit more digital art that I do in the evenings.

Here is my latest painting of some harebells and a blue butterfly that I have done for my youtube channel, "The Armchair Artist."

I hope you enjoy watching it. If you do please consider subscribing because I want to share them with as many people as possible.

Bottle opener done

Hi all,
Well it has finally happened, I have actually finish the bottle opener project, complete with pyrography pattern. And here it is.

I'm pleased with the way that it turned, even though it is a bit flimsy. You have to hold the metal part while you open a bottle because if you didn't it would bend at the first joint, a boomerang shaped bottle opener is not a pretty thing. To overcome this you have to just hold the metal part whilst using it.

It was only cheap but I won't be using that supplier again. I did try to get a more substantial one from Axminster but as is often the case they were out of stock.  Anyway, I will use this one until it breaks and then I'll see if Axminster have got a grip on their stocking levels. One thing is for sure, my new bottle opener looks much better than the one I was using.

I don't know what my next turning project will be because my wife has presented me with a big task in the garden. We live in a small bungalow and, until our new neighbours moved in, we had a lot of privacy courtesy of the big leylandii hedge in their garden. These were planted by the previous owner, who like us like us didn't like being overlooked  by nearby houses.

Anyway, the new neighbours cut down the hedge and opened us up to the world. One solution would be to plant some more trees, but at our age time isn't on our side. So she wants me to build a self supporting trellis that can be covered with rambling roses and thus give us a bit of quick screening. I will show you my progress in my next post.

I have managed to do a another video for my channel on Youtube, "The Armchair Artist ."  Please take a look  and subscribe if you would like to see more.

Thanks for watching.

Bottle Opener

Hi all,
In my younger days I used to be able to sup some stuff. In fact, if you put all the beer into one container there would probably have been enough liquid to extinguish the fire of London. Sadly those days are gone and I now drink much less in a week than I did in a night. Having said, that I still enjoy one or two bottles of beer during the course of a week. Anyway, I have on the table at the side of my chair one of the ugliest bottle openers you ever did see. How I've put up with it for so long I don't know, but it's days are numbered.

I have started turning a new one out of wood. I got it off line and it was only when it arrived that I realised I didn't particularly like the design as far as the turning is concerned. Here is a picture of it.

The problem is that the piece of wood that goes in the middle needs to be concave at each end to accommodate the ball designs on the opener. Perhaps it is because I'm new to woodturning but I could work out how I could hold the work in a chuck and turn each end concave. One end was not a problem, but two concave ends had me stumped.

My solution was to make it in two pieces and join it together because I couldn't think of anything else. That meant a joint and you can see it below.

Not ideal, but what else could I do. If you have another solution I'd be very pleased to hear about it. In the meanwhile, I will have to use my pyrography iron to disguise the joint and make it look acceptable. I will show you the finished product in my next post.

By the way, "A Staffordshire Boy,"  one of my books is free to download from Amazon until Saturday, so if you want a copy please click on the books tab at the top of the page and then on the book's cover.

I have also been busy on the ipad doing a bit of art and uploading it to my channel, "The Armchair Artist" on Youtube.

 If you would like to see episode 8, please click on this Link.
Thanks for watching.

Toothpick Pot

Hi all,
What a fantastic week of weather we have just had. I have never known it so warm for so long in February. The garden was full of butterflies and bees and I was sitting there in my tee shirt enjoying the sunshine and doing a bit of pyrography. It doesn't get much better than that at my age because I have given up almost everything I enjoyed that ends with "ing."  Smoking and fishing I missed the most but it's no good moaning you just have to get on with.

Anyway, the weather was most welcome and it took away any excuses about being too cold to go into the workshop. I even managed to finish the toothpick pot that I started a couple of weeks ago. I made this pot because I was fed up with loosing my toothpick. I wanted something that was both practical and looked good on the shelf within reaching distance of my chair.

The pyrograhy decoration was one of my favourite designs and it was all done with a spoon tip. I do like the smaller woodturning projects and I'm about to start turning a bottle opener which I hope to show you in my next post.

Besides the woodturning and pyrography, I have managed to spend a few hours in the evenings on my ipad doing some more art. Towards the end of 2018 I did group of pencil sketches that revolved around flowers growing on a trellis. Here is a couple of them to give you the idea.

These turned out very nice, they were realistic but they lacked a bit of colour. So, armed with the ipad I got at Christmas, I thought I try something similar on my ipad. I wasn't bothered about it coming out very realistic, I just wanted to create an image that is pleasing to the eye.
Anyway, I had a go and even taught myself to make some stamp brushes to make the process easier and quicker.

I use the stamp brushes to allow me to make adjustments to the composition and to make sure I am consistent in shape and size of object. If you are interested in finding out more, I have uploaded the first part of the painting to my channel on youtube. If you would like to see it please  click on the video below and it will take you to "the Armchair Artist" channel.

Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed it please consider subscribing, I only have one at the moment and they are probably very lonely.

Egg and box

Hi All,
Goods news, my wife is now recovering after a stint in hospital and the weather has warmed up nicely. This means that I will have a bit more time to do creative things and it will be warm enough to go into the workshop.

Last week, I showed you a drawing of a tooth pick pot I said I was going to make, well here is the lid. It is still on the lathe but at least it's a start.

I have turned it out of a piece of lime which takes pyrography very well. In my next post I hope to be able to show you the finished box.

The sun really has been shining in our back garden, so I set up my pyrography iron outside and finished the wooden egg that I'd started last year. It really was nice to catch the warm rays of the sun whilst doing a bit of pyrography. Another advantage of doing pyrography in the garden is that the fumes from the burning wood are taken away on the breeze; it feels much healthier than doing it inside despite the fact that I always use extraction.

So there is the egg, finished with 3 coats of melamine lacquer. I did think of painting the flowers but I thought they look good with just the pyrography. Once the melamine was dry I put the egg in the bowl with the ones I done previously and I now have quite a collection.

I find that decorating these eggs is quite therapeutic. The eggs are also cheap so it makes for a good pastime. I get my eggs off Amazon the delivery is quick and the price is right. The secret to doing good egg decoration is like with any woodwork. They will only ever be as good as the finish, and to get a good finish the wood needs to be prepared. Before decorating an egg I always sand it down with several grades of sandpaper. I start at 150 grit and work my way through the grits to 600, it really does make a difference.

Besides the woodturning and pyrography I have also been busy doing another digital painting, this time of some irises. I have done a video of it and it can be found on my channel at The Armchair Artist.

The eagle eyed may also have spotted that I have added a video link on the righthand side of the page. If you click on that, you will be able to see all 7 episodes of the videos I've done so far. I think I'm getting better, so if you like what you see please consider subscribing and then you'll be able to see how I progress. It doesn't cost anything so you have nothing to lose. I'm not in it to make money, I just like doing the paintings and sharing them.

All comments and questions are welcome.

Tooth pick box

Hi all,
This year is turning out to be pretty grim so far. My wife has had the paramedics out 5 times and has had 2 stays in hospital. She had the trots for 3 weeks and has lost 2stone in weight. She was actually in hospital for most of this last week so, what with visiting her and looking after her mum who has heart failure, diabetes and Altzhiemers, I haven't had much time for creativity. I hate making excuses but there you go. My wife came out of hospital on Friday and I got a horrible cold on Saturday. I'm begining to think somebody has it in for me.

I did manage a couple of things. Firstly, I firmed up my next woodturning and pyrography project which I hope to start this week. It is only simple, but I think it will be pretty and it is much needed.
Here it is, a tooth pick box.

I don't know what it is about getting older but I seem to need a tooth pick after every meal, yet when I was younger I never used one ever. Must be something to do with the gaps between ones teeth, what's left of them, getting wider as one get older.

The second thing I managed to do was to finish and upload episoide 4 of The Armchair Artist to Youtube. In episode 3 I digitally painted a rose. And, while the rose was okay the background was

crap. So in episode 4 I get rid of the background and paint in some leaves and a bud. You can see how I go about it by clicking here. Hope you enjoy the video, I do hope to get better.