Come on in, the water is fine!

My latest woodcarving project. I still have to fine tune some things. For one.. the arms still floating above the water a little bit. Thereafter I’m going to experiment with oil or lacquer.

Hongkong Revisit

I am still tweaking my Hongkong image. The lighting is very difficult. There is an inside and an outside scene in one. But I like doing this tweaking stuff.. it’s educational 🙂

Dremel Flexible Shaft Holder

My dremel cnc can only cut away wood up till a height of 40mm. So my plan is to have drill sideways so I can cut away on the side of parts that cannot be turned. Here is a test holder.

This wood splits too easily (I’m such a Noob) so I’m going to make a new one, using mdf. Hopefully it will be stronger than.

Makeup with laser

I am trying to make a small laser engraver work together with my cnc router. The router to cut away the material and the laser to add makeup. My attempt to use a marker pen failed because of the properties of wood.

For now I am quite happy. I would like some more gradient, but every wood is different so I have to do more testing. The small scale is adding a layer of difficulty. The face is less than 30mm in height.

Next I will try to make a car and use the laser to accentuate the edges.

John Singer Sargent

A few years ago I read the book; Sargent’s Daughters by Erica E. Hirshler. A biography of a painting. This was the start of my interest in art history. I am sorry but I had never heard of John Singer Sargent before this book. In Holland they teach you everything about Dutch painters, some other european painters, but thats about it. Every country has its own Rembrandt and in my opinion Sargent is the Rembrandt of the USA.

I wanted to make a wooden sculpture of him after my Sorolla buste. My son asked me to make one of Rembrandt next. I might. I also want to make a sculpture of Modigliani in the future. But there are less photos of him available.

I hope you like it.

My Mom

Less creative because it was a scan, not a sculpt. But it was intended as an experiment, not as a finished buste. The scans lacks detail. At least with the Sence scanner I borrowed. But I can use the scans as reference material in the future.

Alita: Battle Angel

Alita: Battle Angel is a science fiction movie based on the manga serie Gunnm (Wikipedia). I like every attempt to make movies with cgi characters in them. Preferably with a twist, like the big eyes Alita has. So I enjoyed the movie and was inspired to make a wooden sculpture.

Not so much went wrong this time. That’s nice for a change.

Hope you like it.

Joaquín Sorolla

I went to the Sorolla museum in Madrid. The museum was an oasis in the busy city. I liked his work and saw a few old photographs of him. I thought he had charisma and was thinking he could be the subject of my next woodworking project. The design stage went fine, but the carving not so much. He is missing parts of his ears, so I probably will redo it one day. The woodblock I used was skewed.

There are some photographs I could use as reference but they were all different ages. Sorolla’s face changed quite a bit due gained weight. So I had to mix and match a little.

My Depiction is younger than this Sorolla.

But older than the next.

So..

Wooden Amine Girl

A few centimeters high. Very delicate. I am happy.

Third Portrait

First time I approached the wood from four sides, several times. I have a new way of calibrating and it works very precise. It takes some time to set up, but I think it is worth the effort.

The face and especially the eyes are a bit less sharp but the head is considerably smaller due to the fact she has more shoulder than previous portraits. Emphasis was also more on the hair this time.

Babacool

Arie's site to show stuff