Today I got a chance to go out in my shop and turn some wet Silver Poplar. Some times I like to turn fresh green cut thin and let it move all over. As long as the piece is an even thickness I don’t have to worry about any checking or cracking. After a couple of days it stops the remainder of its movement and they sell good at craft shows. This one is only 14 by 7 inches. I will probably start another big one next weekend I have alot of fresh poplar to use.

Today I went out in my shop and played around with some silver maple. Start to finish turned and dried on the lathe. I used dyes to marbleize the surface. 14 inches in diameter 1/4 inch thick.

This is another aspen urn with a skirted foot. This urn is end grain turned and is 14 inches tall overall. The lid and insert are turned from sapele.

This is an Aspen Urn with an inset Ebony lid with pins. The lid is set in an Ebony collar. The base is inset and sculpted on three feet. The vase is 9 inches tall 13 with the lid.

This is a silver maple burl from a tree cut down at the Broadmour Hotel here in Colorado Springs. It is seven inches high and twenty two inches across. It had alot of character for a silver maple. Got to keep on the good side of the local tree trimmers to get pieces of wood like this.

This is a walnut bowl with a sculpted edge. It is 16 inches in diameter and about 8 inches deep. The surface is dyed and glazed. It is returned where I don’t want the surface enhancement.

This is an Urn turned from a wood called “Acasia Leah” it is a burl and this is the natural color. Very stabil burl and very firgurative. The lid is “African Blackwood” same wood clarinet bells are made from.

Well here it is the final product. This is a large piece made from silver maple. I am calling these my reef series and I will turn them and texture them to represent a species of coral reef. After the burning and the red laquer work over it I layered a shading of american walnut dyed laquer. The piece was then feathered in with black laquer. I matted it all down with satin as I said before I feel the textural pieces require a soft finish. You are going to have to take my word when I say all of my work is as clean inside as it is outside as I feel this says alot about how you feel about your art. Hope it was worth the wait.

The next phase of process is where I turn away any of the inperfections on the rim. I also define the edge the way I want the final surface for airbrush work. I then reverse chuck the piece and turn the foot. After the foot is compleated I begin airbrush phase layering the colors as I want them. I feel that textural pieces work best with a flat final hue. The airbrush system I use is Iwata. The one you are look at is the Eclipse. There are others in Iwata’s line but this will do what most of us need. Practice with colors and shading is required to learn how to shadow and high light the piece

This is a piece I did last weekend while teaching a friend about texture and color. It is beetle kill ponderosa pine. This has been highly textutred then the grain is raised and wire brushed. Experimentation is great on this wood as it is free for me. There is nothing wrong with turning pine. The colors are created using dye, grout, and laquer. I gave this piece to my friend and told him I hope it gives him some insperation in his turning.

This is a concept piece for a series of sculptural turnings I am working on. This is my Red Widow Spyder. I still have to create the face and fangs for the piece. This has been a very challanging piece for me from concept to execution and it is pushing me which I think we all enjoy as wood artists. It is 7 inches in diameter.

This is a box that was turned for me 5 years ago by a friend and extrodinary turner named Stephen Hughes. The box was turned from a block of Macassar Ebony. The wing was broken while Stephen turned it for me but I did not care. Instead of making it a 2 wing box he simply turned the wing from some baltic birch ply. I told Dewey I would post this tonight as the originator of the wing box technique is Stephen. I really believe we can modify something with our own ideas as long as we remember to give credit where credit is due. When ever I want insperation I look at this box and remember there is always some one better than I am and I will always have alot to learn. That is evident on this site as there are some outstanding wood artist here and I commend everyone for posting from the beginner to the so called master.

This urn is 14 inches tall and 6 inches at the girth. The body of the turning is aspen. Always choose standing dead aspen as green aspen has no color or character. The rim and lid are brazilian cherry. The handle for the lid is a mule deer antler mounted and then returned for the accent. The base is hollowed 2 inches up inside. This gives the piece a little more mass with a little less volume inside. It also allows me to retain the same wall thickness throughout the turning. Equal wall thickness means no checks or cracks in the future.

This is a 14 inch natural edge pine bowl. I am posting this sence I have recieved a few Emails asking if pine was a good wood to turn sence alot of us have acess to it. This is ponderosa pine killed by the pine beetle. The blue stain comes from the fungas that is carried on the beetle as is bores. The wall is 1/4 inch even all the way through the foot. So yes I turn pine and I think it is a nice wood to turn and its free or real cheap.

I am out in the shop working on the process piece and I just raised the grain on the inside of the piece for the final sanding. While I am waiting for it to dry thought I would post this piece that is donated to our local Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation dinner. A friend of mine dropped off some Mulberry that was full of nails so I came up with this. It is a small hollow suspended in copper. I have patinaed the copper with a couple different acids and a tourch. The turning is 8 by 4 inches. The copper is under tension so the piece rocks for a long time when you start it going back and forth.

This is a 12 inch Aspen Vase suspended in wenge legs. The piece is highly textured surface. There is black hemp laced in the rim and wrapped around the suspension. It is an end grain turning centered on the pith. 1/4 inch wall due to the need for mass in the textured surface.

I was going through some of my cut offs and I had this piece of Maple Burl Cluster. A cluster burl is where more than one aireal burl is growing together. They are normally small but they have some incredibly tight eyes. As you can see it has a natural edge and all the voids are kept. This piece is 14 by 16 inches and is a platter in my fractured platter series. I had thought about doing some translucent laquer color but there was to much charater to enhance this piece. Some things in nature are to perfect to change.

This is a 12 inch Aspen Vase with a sculpted foot. Lots of aspen out here and great to work with. The foot is undercut 2 inches and then indexed on the lathe. A drum sander is built for the lathe and the sculpted feet are cut out. It is an end grain vase and the rim of a secondary wood in this case brazilian cherry is inserted. This insures there will be no wood movement. A good practice to get in on end grain hollows.

After speaking with RJ I decided to post this piece. This is a sculptural woodturning based on the monolith in the movie “Space Odessy 2010” The piece represents the monolith rising from the rings of Saturn. The three multi axis hollows turned into the sculpture represent moons. In the movie small monoliths came from the large one to seed the universe. Mine are the two pieces swiming away. I call them space fishes, my wife called them space sperm. I created a lazy susan base from walnut and airbrushed it with laquer. The sculpture is 28 inches tall with out the base. It is all wood, Rings are Maple, Sculpture Cherry, Fishes are Aspen with Maple tails. I want to push the limits using wood as a art form. I don’t want to do the norm and pieces like this are challanging and make me think so I enjoy making them.

Sometimes I have to do a turning that is compleatly functional but I have to embelish it. This is a 20 in Brazilian Cherry Lazy Susan with several different exotic wood inlays. I made this for my parents and had alot of fun doing a relatively easy project. Sometimes I get a little carried away trying to make each of my projects some what artsy but they like it.