Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

[Brian T]

Western Red Cedar fence post, 3.5 x 3.5 x 11.5". Straight dish walls 3/8" thick, bottom 1/2" & flat. The metallic green might have been darker, I wanted soot-black eyes and matte varnish didn't do it. Liquitex Gloss varnish 2X. Loosely based on a dragonfly drawing by the late Jim Gilbert in "Learning By Designing, Vol 1.

[GinnytooU]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Well this looks amazing to me Ginny

[Buffalo Bif]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Excellent carvings, and interesting source of wood, too.

[Claude]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Nice work!

Claude

[Josef]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

They're great Brian. Neat idea and well executed. The design on the sides would have taken awhile to do?

[GregGerard]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

I like carvings with paint and natural finish together, like these.
Very nice.

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Ginny: Thanks. the dishes have quite a musical note when I flick them with a fingernail. Not at all the same. Did a far better job of the left/right side symmetry.

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Brian: Thanks. I was on the lookout for some cedar, bigger than my usual 24" shake blocks. Found 2 almost perfect 8' fence posts in Home Depot one day. Never found cedar fence posts in there agian.

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Claude & Josef: The layout on a length of fence post is just repetition. Some saw cuts at the joints and bash away. I think that the grooves between segments are too deep but I was having a good time!

The cross-hatching for the wings was deep stop cuts on the pattern then 2 skew cuts in opposite directions to make the groove. Vee tools in my cedar just pop off chunks.

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

GG: thanks. Very nearly all paint or nothing. Looked at them for weeks. I have a piece of Alaskan Yellow cedar big enough to do 2 more. I'll wax those clear.

[markken5889]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

cool idea...nice work!!!

Mark

[CavalierLady]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Very nicely done. That's a lot of detail on the bottom of the dishes, where it will be mostly unseen. I also like the combination of color and natural wood. Good choice of music, too.

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Thanks Cav. In the beginning, I gave no thought at all to the outside dish bottoms.
Jim Gilbert's original 2D drawing shows the typical dragonfly pose with the wings straight out. I wondered how it might look with the head on one end, tail on the other and the wings wrapped along the sides of a dish.
Got that done and decided to do some "leggy" sort of relief on the bottom.
Cleaning up and smoothing the insides (very last of all) was fun with the Mora crooked knives, they have little scorp-like hooks which made the bottom & edge work quite fun.

[Orygoner]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

I like 'em! :-)

[Brian T]

Re: Cedar Dragonfly Dishes

Thanks, Orygoner. I might make another pair from a beam of Yellow Cedar that I have.
Buck naked, no color, just wax.