The Dream

Hi, well, I’m making progress! Work is still crazy but I’ve reached the point where I’ve almost finished THE MIRROR for her loveliness, The Queen. I have to admit that I got a wee tinsy bit lazy and when it came to doing the cross-bar: I used the flowery ornate one instead of coming up with a more appropriate design. But the very nice thing, Ladies and Gentleman, is that I’m almost at the point of assembly! I know, please, stop the applause. Here is the almost completed mirror ready for assembly:

Almost Ready for Assembly

You know, I forgot to show you guys the vertical leg. After much consternation and navel gazing, I decided to use a banister and carve the top. Since I’ve absolutely committed to the flower design concept for Her Highness, it was an easy decision to come up with the grand idea to carve a, ummm...flower on the top. The banisters are made from pine and being a soft wood, was a little more difficult to carve but here it is:

Flower Leg

As of this very moment, the cross-bar has had several coats of stain and has been ‘antiqued’. Once that’s dry, it’ll get a couple of coats of clear polyurethane and then it’s time for assembly and getting measured for a mirror.

But, here’s my next project: Gandalf’s staff! Or at least, Gandalf’s distant cousin’s staff who perhaps has little or no magical wizardry powers whatsoever.

The Staff

Sorry this pic is not that clear. So here’s the scoop. I was trimming some Pittosporum trees on my property a while back and ended up with a number of branches that I couldn’t throw away. I figured they’d be useful for something...like a wigwam or for beating off stray dogs in the neighbourhood. Anywaaay, I started carving one. Once again, I used ye ol’ angle grinder with a sanding wheel and cut out the rough design you see right here. I spent more time carving the handle and other bits. As of right now, it’s sitting in my garage collecting stray spells and drying from the coat of stain I put on it yesterday. I know you’re all angsting to see the details, as am I. So, in a couple of days, I’ll post some more detailed images of the carving work and I’ll explain what I did and how I did it. As it happens, a mischiefous elf appeared in a dream last night and strongly urged me to pull a sicky at work and finish the staff so that its full power could be released. But since there are no kingdoms to banish anyone to, I figured I’d just savour the experience of slowly and patiently finishing this thing of power.

I think my coffee is too strong. I’ll see you in a couple of days with an update.

Thanks for stopping by.

Amos

Cave Time

Well, work is crazy 
and I don't seem able to do my usual thing after a day at work, which is walking in the front door, making coffee and then hacking away at particle board with my angle grinder, but I've got ideas. In fact, I've got a whole lot of exciting projects up my sleeve and I'm happy to share the love good people. To be honest, I've done bugger all on the mirror since my last post, however, I thought I'd put a few more pics up for you to look at.

Top Of Mirror Frame

I didn't give much of an explanation of this in the last post so here goes.
So we've got this Hibiscus tree outside our bedroom window and I used this as the central theme for the mirror. The big flower in the middle is my rendition of the very lovely, the very beautiful Hibiscus. "So what about the curly corners?" I hear you asking. Well, when you live in New Zealand it's difficult NOT putting some sort of curly Koru design on something when you're trying to be arty-farty. The Koru represents the New Zealand fern, which is a bit curly when it's young and tender and you see versions of it on almost everything piece of NZ marketing. Yes! We're proud of our curly wee fern. Anyway....back to the mirror. I decided to draw a flower and curly green tendrils to add a bit more interest. I sketched these with a pencil first, then drew the outline with a marker pen. Then I coloured them with food dye! Food dye is amazing - really strong colours and doesn't come off - wear old clothes because it's very splashy and seems to get on everything. The little carved flower in the corner of the frame is part of the frame. I used a plunge router to rebate the face of it so it's lower than the frame itself.

I carved these little round flowers

Carved Flower

These flowers are about 40mm diameter and I made 2 of them. They were a bit fiddly to carve, but once I got the hang of it, it was fairly easy. Made from 9mm mdf and with an antique finish as described in my previous post. The design on the frame is hand-drawn using permanent markers.

Well, my coffee is finished so I think that's a heavenly sign for me to finish.
The next post will probably be about the cross bar, which is the final piece to finish before I assemble the whole thing. And lastly, I had a dream about Gandalf the other night and the Pittosporum (native NZ tree) branches drying in my garage. My next post might be about that...yes, I know...cryptic. So come back and see what I'm up to.

Adios good people