THE TWO INVITAITIONAL COUNTRY CRAFT FAIR AND OLD FASHIONED MERCANTILE - SEA DOG

when I was away in China I worked on another piece beside The Mermaid. The second piece that I took with me to China was just a piece of wood. I had thought that it would be an animal figure. I was not sure what kind of animal it would be but I knew it would be an animal. After I did some preliminary carving to create a general animal shape it became evident that it would be a dog. My youngest daughter's rottweiler, Diesel,  came to mind so I used the rottweiler species as a model for my carving. I found many examples of rottweilers on the internet that helped me as I modeled my piece. It was remarkable in a way, I did most of the roughing out on a rainy Saturday afternoon in my hotel room in Nanning, China. I did the final shaping, sanding and finishing when I returned home to Canada.

After I had finished sanding the dog with the last grade of sandpaper, 800 grit, I decided that the dog needed something to sit on. I found a piece of found wood in my collection of found wood that I thought was perfect. I sanded the base but not to the same luster as the dog. I wanted the base to have a wind swept, water worn look to it. In addition, I thought that the dog required a name. I decided to call him Sea Dog. I roughly carved the name "Sea Dog" into the front of the base to give it a ragged looked then I sanded the entire area where I had carved the name to give it a washed out look.

After treating the base with several solutions of Tung oil cut by thinners I applied a coating of cabinet makers wax to seal and protect the surface.

Now, everything is assembled. Sea Dog is attached to his base with a dowel pin that I glued into a hole in the base and a corresponding hole in the bottom of Sea Dog. i was a little nervous because there is not that much material in the base of Sea Dog and I did not want to break through the wood with my Forstner bit that I used to drill the hole.

The last thing that I did was attach the two glass eyes into place. I used two old pins that had rust heads. I cut the pins short then pushed the pins into Sea Dogs head which firmly seated the glass eyes into position. I do have to say that Sea Dog has a forlorn look sitting on his piece of floating debris.

Sea Dog ensconced on his bit of driftwood

He definitely has a mournful look!

You can see how the piece of wood that Sea Dog is sitting on is well worn

This end is almost completely eroded

I left most of the wood intact in the back, holes and all.

some of the letters are clear and prominent. Others have almost completely faded away.

SIRENS AND MERMAIDS

I have been thinking about selling some of my carvings. In fact, I have one piece, The Master, has been on sale on Etsy for the passed month of so. It is time to get another piece on Etsy for sale. In many ways, this other piece as completely different from The Master yet there are similarities.

I call this new piece, Siren. For the longest time I thought of it as a mermaid but the more I looked at it and when I took the pictures for this post and for Etsy, the word siren kept coming to mind. So who care? Siren or mermaid, what's the big deal? To me, at least, there is an ethos about the piece that says,"I am a siren...beware!". In Greek mythology the sirens were birdlike women who lured sailors with their songs and caused them to crash on the rocky shore of their island.

 sirens

On the other hand, mermaids,

have been portrayed as sinister in the past, today they have taken on a more benign presentation in popular culture. When I conjure up an image of a mermaid I think of the little mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen who caused misfortune more by ignorance than by malice.

When I took the pictures of my latest piece I began to see it more as a siren than a mermaid. Especially in the setting that I placed it in for the pictures. I could see a man being drawn in by her alluring gesture. If she could sing and I imagined her singing, she would captivate the way  Melody Gardot can captivate with her singing.

What is interesting is that the carving is very small. It is less than six inches wide at the widest. It is only three inches deep and it is not more than six inches in height. Yet it seems to occupy a much larger space. It definitely has presence.


What I find interesting is that it all started as a piece of wood that I found bobbing on the shore during one of our walks along our beach. I guess my little siren captivated me one that day. I had no real plan for the wood when I found it. There was just something about it that I liked, the curve of the wood, the color, I really don't know. I just knew that I had to make something out of it. What it turned into was a siren.

NUTCRACKER UPDATE

While I was on vacation during Christmas I decided that I would create three nutcrackers for my children for the following Christmas. That would be Christmas of 2011 which is little more than seven months away. I know that I have been preoccupied with making a cradle for my youngest daughter's first child. I have also had a fairly heavy travel schedule this year, shuttling between China, Mexico and the US. I did manage to prepare my first piece that I would like to sell; The Master. In between all of this activity I have not lost sight of the nutcrackers. I thought a lot about what each nutcracker would look like and I discussed each nutcracker with each of my children. What I do have are three working drawings, one or two for each of the nutcrackers. Here they are. Please do not judge these drawings on their artistic merit. They are only meant to be a guide while I am working on the nutcrackers so the drawings are not of the highest quality.

The first two drawings are for the Nutcracker for my son. They are based on one of his favorite video game characters from the video game, Halo. The character's name is Cloud. I did several drawings of Cloud before these two. These two drawing are full size so that I can take actual dimensions from these drawings. When the nutcracker is completed it will stand approximately eighteen inches tall. All nutcrackers have some part of their anatomy that moves which enables it to crack nuts. Traditionally, it is the mouth that opens and closes that makes the nut cracking device. I did not want to change the face of the character so I decided that the arm holding the sword would move up and down. This will be the nut cracker.

 The next two drawings are for the nutcracker that I am creating for my oldest daughter. She wanted to have a skater nutcracker. I decided that I would use an old fashioned Victorian skater. The clothing and the skates make a quaint figure that gives the character a whimsical look. Like Cloud, the warrior, the skater uses her right arm as the mechanism that creates the nutcracker. When the skater is in the normal position there is little indication that it is also a nutcracker. I have not developed the full size drawings yet for the skater but they will just be larger versions of this drawing. Like Cloud, the skater will be about eighteen inches tall.

 

The third nutcracker for my youngest daughter only has one drawing at the moment. It is going to be a nurse practitioner nutcracker. My youngest daughter is finishing her studies to be a nurse practitioner. It was only fitting that I would create a nurse practitioner for my youngest daughter. Like Cloud and the skater, the nurse practitioner will stand approximately eighteen inches when it will be completed. As Cloud and the skater use the right arm to create the nutcracker mechanism.  

There is a tradition of nutcrackers using a variety of mechanisms to crack nuts.

The Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington has graciously allowed me use some of their photographs in my posts about Nutcrackers, The Nutcracker Museum.

This graceful nutcracker of a French courtesan was one of my inspirations for the three nutcrackers that I am working on.The top of the nutcracker lifts off and the nutcracker is inside. There are more pictures and details in the Nutcracker book that is available fro the Nutcracker museum. It is an excellent book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in nutcrackers.


The pictures above is courtesy of the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington.

The carving of a Chinese girl is also delicately rendered with careful detail and expression in the face and body.




The pictures above is courtesy of the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington

The actual cracking mechanism is hidden from the front. It is a screw mechanism where the nut is inserted in the back and the screw is turned down until the nut breaks.

The pictures above is courtesy of the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington

The nutcracker poses a special challenge. one is making an interesting figure that is attractive and usually novel in some way. the second challenge which completes the first challenge is that is must also be a working, nut cracking device. To me, it is a challenging combination of the artistic and the mechanical.