Wise Owl

Hi all,
Ive finally managed to get a couple of projects underway. For a simple start I thought I'd turn, carve and burn a small caricature of an owl. Here is Oliver, or Olly if you want to shorten it, he won't mind.

He looks kind of cute and I quite enjoyed burning the feathers on. It will be good practise for when I try to do a realistic bird in a few weeks time. If there is one think about it that I don't like, it's the beak. Especially from the angle I've photographed it from because in the photo it looks more like a pig's snout. Perhaps I should have called him Porky.

Anyway, for those who are interested, this is how he was made.

Step 1:  I made a rough model out of Plasticine.

This gave me something to follow when removing wood. You may notice that the finished article is a bit taller and on a plinth. The reason for that is, the plinth is actually the bit that the wood was mounted to the lathe with and I kept it on during the carving process to give me something to hold on to. Anyway, I like  the look of the plinth and decided to keep it.

Step 2: I took a square of lime wood and turned it to the overall shape of the owl. By doing this I removed a lot of wood which saved me time when doing the carving.

Step 3: I roughed out the shape.

Once I was happy with it what I'd done, I refined it and sanded it to the final shape.

Step 4: I drew on a few feathers with a pencil and once I was happy with the style I did the rest with my pyrography iron. I also burned the plinth to give it some texture and some colour.

Step: 5 I wiped it down with rubbing alchol to remove any surplace carbon/soot that was created by the burning process. Then I gave it seveal coats of melamine lacquer.

My next project is a small box with a turqoise inlay. I've not done this before so I'm waiting to see how it turns out. All will be revealed in my next post.