Hello and good morning all..today's post is this little owl I carved last year.
It was carved from cedar and about 14 inches tall.
Cedar tends to dry fast and crack in at least one spot, from the sap ring right to the heart(center) of the log. Although it can also be a dry log and still crack. Cutting into the grain changes the pressure in the wood so it can split open even if you kiln dry the log.
Sometimes I can read the log and direct this cracking toward the backside of the sculpture. Sometimes I can't and it splits right where you don't want it to.
Right up his face and into his eye. This makes for a hard to sell piece. And it sat for awhile...
Here it is in its original form...started off as a mother owl perched above its offspring in the tree.
Chainsaw only..
After finish work, the cracking wasn't too bad. But it wasn't selling. So that is bad..
Eventually I cut off the baby owl..
For some reason I still have the cutoff..found it while I was cleaning the shop the other day.
Still wasn't selling..
It was time to fix his face..
What I did was cut some shims to fill in the cracks, glued them in tight, then recarved and painted the piece. Sorry I didn't get any footage of this process.
Blended rather well and within a couple days, it sold.
I hope you enjoyed seeing what I saw, if so feel free to upvote and reblog. I love what I do and I'm happy to share here on Peakd.
Thank you all for looking and have an excellent day.
Jon