As a member of the Oceanside Museum of Art, Artists Alliance, I attended the Quarterly Critique and brought Dancer for a critique by my fellow artist members. I always learn something at these critiques, if nothing else, I get a sense from the comments on how well the piece is accepted. I had a feeling from the session, that the piece was looked on favorably by the group.
Here are some other views of Dancer, in the process. The outer bark has been picked off, leaving remnants of the underpart still left on the wood.
And here is a view of Dancer, just before starting the final sanding. Starting the sanding with an 80 grit power grinder, moving steadily lighter grit sand paper, using a power sander, then moving on with hand sanding ending with 400 grit.
Starting from scratch. I always feel like that when trying to form a new piece of art. Sometimes the wood calls out to me because of the form it already has. Sometimes it is not so easy, such as when I am dealing with a milled piece of lumber. Trying to come up with something that won’t feel flat, just as flat as the board it when it comes from the mill.
I use to do a lot of bending of wood, accessing a hot tub that I used to accomplish that. I used plain Douglas Fir, and sometimes it worked, other times not. I still have strips of hardwood that I bent, hoping it would call out to me to do something with it.
I got a piece of Black Walnut from a distant family member in Salem, Mass. I played with that until I finally saw something that appeared like a human figure. I will post those pictures of the piece in progress.
