Project Information
This was a pretty epic piece of work.
I came up with the image for it by hand.. lots of fussing around in Photoshop. Converted it into a 3d model based on the relief pattern and then spent way too much time in VisualMILL getting everything working "just right". Felt like it took almost as much time to simulate as it did to make.
The wood is a piece of rock maple. I picked it because it was kind of an awkward shape/size and I wasn't sure what I could DO with it. Then when I had this idea of carving earth, it just made sense. I feel that the natural edges really work with it. I did not get any photos of it but the top and bottom sides even have a bit of bark on them.
It is about 8.5×18x1" - the thinnest part is .5"
Took over 10 hours to cut…
I then stained it three times. A wash of a light "Colonial Maple" which is my go-to base colour. Then I made a custom mix of blue + "natural pine" and washed it over the oceans and peeled it back. I purposefully mixed water based stain in with the oil based stain so that the blue particles kind of floated. I then went over the entire thing with "English Chestnut". It's VERY subtle but you can see hints of the blue in the seas, especially in the crevasses. I was aiming for subtle leaning towards invisible.
What's wild is much of it looks pretty flat but if you run your fingertips over it you can clearly feel the variation.
I didn't have anything in mind when I made it… I'm putting it up over at Etsy, I'll be kind of surprised if it makes it through the day without being purchased.
I'm thinking of doing this again.. but bigger! Somebody suggested to me to try doing it with a high-quality plywood. I think it could be neat.
I came up with the image for it by hand.. lots of fussing around in Photoshop. Converted it into a 3d model based on the relief pattern and then spent way too much time in VisualMILL getting everything working "just right". Felt like it took almost as much time to simulate as it did to make.
The wood is a piece of rock maple. I picked it because it was kind of an awkward shape/size and I wasn't sure what I could DO with it. Then when I had this idea of carving earth, it just made sense. I feel that the natural edges really work with it. I did not get any photos of it but the top and bottom sides even have a bit of bark on them.
It is about 8.5×18x1" - the thinnest part is .5"
Took over 10 hours to cut…
I then stained it three times. A wash of a light "Colonial Maple" which is my go-to base colour. Then I made a custom mix of blue + "natural pine" and washed it over the oceans and peeled it back. I purposefully mixed water based stain in with the oil based stain so that the blue particles kind of floated. I then went over the entire thing with "English Chestnut". It's VERY subtle but you can see hints of the blue in the seas, especially in the crevasses. I was aiming for subtle leaning towards invisible.
What's wild is much of it looks pretty flat but if you run your fingertips over it you can clearly feel the variation.
I didn't have anything in mind when I made it… I'm putting it up over at Etsy, I'll be kind of surprised if it makes it through the day without being purchased.
I'm thinking of doing this again.. but bigger! Somebody suggested to me to try doing it with a high-quality plywood. I think it could be neat.