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.