New Images of New, Old, and Unfinished Work

I had Rick photograph new work last week before installing the sea shell. In addition to having a good camera and the right lights, his ability to get the colors right with photoshop are much better than I can do even with the right equipment so I think it is well worth the investment to get a decent portfolio together.

Epitonium apexaurum (Hitzig, 2010)
curly yellow birch, walnut, shellac, gold
82" x 48" x 1"

I had finished the piece below in September/October (I spent several weeks trying to get the shellac to crackle by taking it in and out of a meat freezer before giving up and calling it done) but, luckily, it hasn't sold yet, in spite of the unusual and spectacular figure, so I've been able to get a good image taken. I decided on the shape because the end of the board was cut at that angle at the lumber mill or forest and I thought it would look good at the other end as well.

Frozen Flame
shellac on blistered maple

30" x 19" x 1"

The title is partly a reference to the blue surrounding the flames and partly a reference to putting it in a freezer.

I finally finished my first flag. I wasn't happy with the coloring in the star section when I first had it imaged. This is what I was trying to do originally.

Untitled First Flag
shellac on curly maple, cherry, and bird's-eye maple
24" x 41" x 1"

The second flag isn't going so well and I think I'll need to completely redo the blue section. I've tried about 5 or 6 different combinations of blue, deep blue, purple, green so far and none of them work. I think I might try something more geometric next. At this pace I should have enough of these for a show in about 15 years.

Almost Square Flag Draft
shellac on curly maple, cherry, bird's-eye maple
26 1/2" x 26 3/8" x 1"

Alternate orientation

I also had an image taken of an older piece that I didn't have a good picture of, again, luckily, it remained unsold.

Miocenean Memory
curly maple, moose antler, epoxy, shellac
52" x 14" x 4"

I thought the piece looked something like a bear, maybe a proto-bear from long ago, long since forgotten, hence the title (I think bears first started to appear in the Miocene). The figure in the wood really makes it look like it is covered with fur.

I haven't yet finished the piece below because I've been struggling with the overlay rectangle. Since I was having other pictures taken, I had it imaged also, hoping that having a good picture would help to see it better.

Untitled/Unfinished
shellac on curly maple, cherry, and walnut
49" x 26" x 1"

I consider vertical striped section to be done but have been unable to find a color combination for the overlay stripes that work with the rest of it. So far I have been through the following combinations:
red/yellow/black/red/black
all clear
shades of blue (which looked great but didn't work with the rest of it)
blue/green/blue/green/yellow-green
blue/green/red-green/blue/yellow-green
various shades of black added to the above

Right now, I'm liking this combination the best but think that it might be better to replace it with a solid black piece (with grain still going in the perpendicular direction). It is painful how the little things can take the longest time. It is also painful learning how to paint. You'd think it would be easy but it really isn't. Sculpture is much easier, painting sculpture is relatively easy, but figuring out color combinations and making colors work on their own, that is hard stuff.

Delivered and Installed

Yesterday I delivered and installed the seashell commission. Thankfully, everything when smoothly. No damage to the piece getting it down there. No car accidents. No major forgotten items. No installation iterations. It took a little over an hour to put it together, determine the exact location, and place it. I'm not totally surprised; I didn't think it would take long, but I was a little nervous that something would go wrong and I would have to drive back to Vermont without accomplishing the mission.

Epitonium apexaurum (Hitzig, 2010)
curly yellow birch, walnut, shellac, gold
82" x 48" x 1"

Unfortunately, the client had jury duty so she didn't get to see the installation, but her husband, sister, and interior designer(?) were all happy with the finished piece. I have to say I'm happy with the results as well. It looks better than I had envisioned in that the figure in the yellow birch is better than I could have hoped for and the scale of the piece is perfect for the space.
I named it Epitonium apexaurum (Hitzig, 2010) because the shape is based primarily on shells of the Epitoniidae family, which includes Epitonium. Here is a good example of a different genus in the same family, Amaea ferminiana (Dall, 1908):The apexaurum part of the name is just a reference to the fact that the tip is gilded, unlike any other species in the family. Fortunately, as an artist, I do not have to go through the same peer review process as a biologist or paleontologist in naming a new species. They would probably tell me, among other things, that I should have included it in the Amaea genus. However, I'm not sure how to pronounce that word and my nomenclature rules allow exceptions for such things (nothing more embarrassing then for an artist to go around mispronouncing the name of his own piece).

Shell Commission Part III

I'm about ready to start painting it. Both walnut and birch are open-pore so it take a ton of shellac to seal, walnut especially. With maple, being closed-pore, it is really much faster to get to the painting stage.

Shell Commission Update

Here is the roughed-out shell commission. Having heard Hank Gilpin give a talk at Gallery NAGA two days ago, I've been thinking about what he said about commissions, how they are a great opportunity to do interesting things that he wouldn't normally do (he gave an example of a ten foot long table six inches high). I think this is a good example. There is no way I would have thought of doing a giant sea shell but I'm happy to be doing it and pleased with how it is looking. In this way, it is really a collaboration with the client. I don't mind collaborating; there is no reason I need to work alone with self-inspiration. Although there is always a risk in working with other people - that you may create a camel when you really want a horse - but done right, it can be an opportunity to make something much better than one would otherwise do.It looks like it will turn out to be 83" rather than the 80" I had in my drawing but I'm sure that isn't a problem. I was able to select curly yellow birch boards with similar figure and all the curls are moving in the same direction so it should look like one consistent board throughout the piece. I'll bleach the heart wood out of the top three sections so it won't distract from the coloring. The section second from the bottom is darker than the rest because I had started shellacking it to get an idea of what it would look like.

Working with yellow birch also has me thinking about Hank Gilpin because he is famous for his use of rarely used species, which yellow birch is. Though, I now have a good understanding of why yellow birch is such an under-utilized wood. Frankly, it is a pain in the butt to cut. The wood is so hard and the curl so intense that you need to make the very smallest cuts on the joiner and planer or the grain will tear out with deep gouges. Then, there is so much tension in the wood that I can't get it through the table saw in one pass; the boards pinch the blade as it is going through so I have to repeatedly stop the saw, pull it out, and start again. A four foot board can take 4 tries to get it through the saw (rough cutting with the band saw might have been a good idea). Although it is extra work, it will be worth it. Yellow birch is the right species for this project and it will look great when I'm done. Besides, cutting the boards is an almost insignificant part of the project. I'll spend so many more hours painting it, I won't have any memory of the difference in cutting time when I'm done.

Bleaching Experiment

I needed to work out some technical issues for the shell commission so I decided to experiment with them on the second piece of my Flag Series. The major issue I'm dealing with is how to bleach the wood so that I can get true colors. I haven't found any detailed info on the web but found enough to learn that I wanted to use a two part method with lye and hydrogen peroxide. Finding lye was more difficult than I envisioned. It seems that in recent years many hardware stores have stopped selling it, I assume because it is deceptively innocuous. It doesn't look any more dangerous than mayonnaise but will dissolve/burn your skin like sulfuric acid. Home Depot used to sell a brand that was made for paint stripping but I couldn't find it anywhere. After an extending Internet search I learned that it is still used for clearing clogged pipes and after a few local phone calls, I was able to find it at Agway. The 2 lb container was about $10. Hydrogen peroxide was a lot easier to find at the local drug store, costing $1 (3% solution) and, of course, vinegar is needed to neutralize the lye, easily picked up at the grocery store for about $2/gallon. I've read that there are commercial bleaching kits that use this chemicals and can be bought at hardware stores but I haven't seen them -- admittedly, I haven't I looked very hard either. Having a kit has the huge advantage of providing instructions, I suspect they might also have higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide which might work better, but they have the disadvantage of not being as much fun to use. I find learning by experimentation is more fun than reading.

Above are the three chemicals on top of some of the yellow birch I'm planning on using for the shell.
Here is the bird's-eye maple, with a large section of dark heart wood, that I'm using for the flag - before treatment.

This is what it looks like after applying the lye and hydrogen peroxide. I mixed about one teaspoon of lye with a half cup of water. Let it dissolve and cool down (the reaction of water and lye creates a lot of heat, if the concentration is too high, I suspect it would melt a plastic cup). Then I brushed the lye on the wood and let it sit for about 15 minutes (I've learned not to leave the brush in the lye mixture because it will dissolve the bristles). Then I brushed on the hydrogen peroxide, let it sit for a minute or two, wipe-off with paper towels, and repeated until I no more color was being removed (about five interations).
The next step is to brush on vinegar, wipe-off, and repeat two or three times. Remember, vinegar is cheap, don't be frugal with it. If the lye hasn't been completely neutralized, it will destroy your finish. The reaction of the vinegar with the wood is when you really see the change. Before the vinegar is applied, you might not think that you've done anything. After wiping off the last interation of vinegar I wash the piece with tap water to get rid of the vinegar smell.

Here is the "after" next to the board it came from.

And here is the early draft of an almost square flag (it is 1/8" wider than high because I couldn't bring myself to take another 1/8" off the bird's-eye maple).

Update August 30, 2011: For people looking for more information, check out this discussion on the WoodWeb site.

Shell Commission - Part I

A couple of weeks ago I received a request to design a custom piece for this space above a fireplace:With the following dimensions:The client had bought "Thrice in a Lifetime" at the Paradise City show in October for the space but it really didn't work, as I realized when I saw the image of the location. In addition to being a large, odd shaped wall, it also starts 10 feet above the floor, so a 3' x 3' piece would get totally lost. They wanted to know if they could exchange what they had for something that fit better and I told they they could. The specific request was to "draw up some ideas for a special order shellac painting piece (perhaps something shell-like)." Since the client had previously asked about doing something shell-like, I felt the emphasis was really on shell-like and not on a general abstract piece.

At first, I was confused about how I could apply what I do to make something that would be considered "shell-like." I didn't want to do any carving and all I could think of were scallops. Then I realized that gastropods, cephalopods, and the like, create sea-shells and that it might be possible to create a flat projection of something along those lines.

After spending a couple of days looking at thousands (no exaggeration) of shell images, primarily from this site, this one (94,199 shells for sale and I think I saw them all), and this one; I decided to go with something along the lines of this and this. The great thing about working in the parameters of something "shell-like" is that the diversity of shapes and colors are so great that there is an enormous amount of flexibility. Had they asked for a dog, whale, or some other figurative object, I probably would have refused, but shells, they seem to work with what I already do.

So I started drawing, and struggling with creating something that fit the space proportionally. Here are my series of drawing, in the approximate order they were created (I know it is a lot to post but I think it is interesting how they go from something rough and horrible to something that actually might work):
After I drove by a Shell station I realized that I could create an art deco stylized scallop-like shell but then realized it really wouldn't fit the space very well. I also didn't like its perfect symmetry, although shells like this and this are really captivating. Some shells are somewhat angular but I thought it would be too "hard" for the space. Finally, I was happy with a drawing. I just needed to recreate a clean version, which I did below:

I suggested that it might look best in flame yellow birch, which I picked up recently, because both the grain and the figure are larger than maple and could be seen better from a distance; and that the stripes could be made with walnut because it would contrast better with the yellow birch than cherry would. I also thought that the tip could be gilded in order to draw more attention to the top and make it more visible from a distance (about 17' high).
As shown in the cross-section drawings, the edges will be rounded, there will be a small gap between the sections (eight total), and the sections will be joined with a backing that will be screwed into each side.

I'm hoping to finish the piece by sometime in November. Luckily, the clients are flexible about the schedule so that I can have time to finish some new pieces for the shows I'm going to in September and October. I've started milling the wood that I have and the figure in the yellow birch should be perfect for this application, really big and dramatic. However, I'm a little short on what I need so I have an excuse to go to the lumber mill on Monday to pick up some more birch, walnut, and what ever else looks interesting. Always good to have an excuse to go to the mill.