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Still painting! More Karate bears.... These guys were carved previously while I was up at the cabin. The Orange belt I'm sending to my grandson who just earned his and the black belts will go to my own school for awards to the students. They've been carved from 1/2" sheets of empress wood laminated together to form a 2" x 2" X 6" block. The problem that I ran into this time is that I didn't guess right on the grain so that I had two sheets running one way and two sheets running the other which presented quite a challenge when carving - to say the least!!! Overall it turned out very rough and between the grain and the coloring of the wood I ended up having to apply an opaque finish. As with the Snoopy dog that I posted the other day I used Gesso as a primer, followed by acrylic paints for color, and sealed with a water based matte polyurethane finish.
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Hi Eddy,
I don't see a thing wrong with these bears and your health problem hasn't affected your painting one iota. What is empress wood?
The dojo is fortunate to have you donating these great carvings for them to give as gifts, rewards, acknowledgements, etc. -
Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Ron...
Looks like we've got this one to ourselves! Sort of like going to the 1215 showing at the movies and having the theater all to yourself! Ha! Ha!
You must have missed earlier posts where I discussed the empress wood.
The Empress tree is native to China and Japan. It's an extremely fast growing hardwood tree. It's my understanding that it grows even faster than a punk tree and sucks up water like one. The up side is that it's a great sustainable crop and it eats up carbon dioxide like no tomorrow!
A lot of the wood products that we see coming out of China are manufactured from Empress wood. The stuff I get is from the boards that the kids break in karate class. The dojo buy the boards pre-cut and sanded from a wholeseller who imports them in from China. I simply take the pieces which are only thrown out anyway and glue them together. It's kind of a novelty. I'd really like to get a hold of some unlaminated 2"x2" Empress wood stock but since this stuff is imported I don't know if there is such a thing.Comment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Your bears are real cute and nicely done.Do you know if anyone sells seeds to grow the empress trees in this country? Actually I guess I could look that up!My ETSY shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodforddellDesignsComment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Sharon...
You've got me on that one. I've never even given it a thought. But from the description of Empress wood as to how good it is at sucking up water from the ground and at proliferating I'd think that there'd be some states out there with a restriction on it's import.
Thanks for your comments!Comment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Eddy ... you are a master in cute bears .. your ideas and forms are so neat to see ..
you did good Eddy
GeneComment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Eddy, very nice class of bears you got there.Comment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Jim... I don't know! Whether they've got class or whether there's enough for class... that's a matter of opinion! Ha! Ha! ThanksComment
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Re: "Bearly" enough for a class!
Eddy, I googled empress tree and got all kinds of great info, this one is terrific!http://www.morlanwoodgifts.com/storefront.asp?pageno=86 And now I remember (duh me!) that I started some from seeds years ago.To bad they died, cause I'd have some great carving wood by now!My ETSY shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodforddellDesignsComment
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