Westpoint 26th and 27th Oct 2018

I spent last Friday and Saturday at the Woodworking and Power Tool Show at Westpoint Arena near Exeter with my club, Axminster Woodturners Club. To cut a long story short, I did a demonstration slot each day on the stage, as a representative from my club. This was a new experience for me and a little nerve wracking as usually it is the professionals who do these demos. Interaction with the audience was limited due to the position in the venue and the audience are free to come and go as they please!

I think it went reasonably well, here are some photos from Friday's slot. I demonstrated how to colour the rim of an Ash bowl and texture the rim of an Oak bowl.

Turning the rim of the Ash bowl

Adding colour, spirit stains

Filling the grain with liming wax

Removing excess wax

Coloured rim, liming wax in the grain

Turning the inside of the bowl

Cutting grooves with the Proxxon mini grinder

Brushing the soot out of the grain after scorching

The view from the lathe before the audience arrived

End of the WIT Exhibition!

My Green Dragon bowl was returned today, back from the Turnabout exhibition in America. It was a year ago this month that I was hurriedly photographing my entries ready to submit to the juried selection. I still remember the shock when I received the email in early December to say that my piece had been selected! A great opportunity and I feel very pleased to have had this opportunity.
Below are a few photos of the exhibition at it's last venue, at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Nice to see "Green Dragon" in the centre of this cabinet!

Returned in original condition and well packed!

AWGB Seminar Oct 2018

I had a fantastic weekend at the AWGB Seminar at Yarnfield Conference Centre last weekend. I took loads of photos, a selection of which I will post here in due course.

On a personal note, I was really pleased on Sunday to see that my "Fire Dragon" piece had been selected to be part of the new AWGB travelling exhibition. 

This piece is a development of my "Green Dragon" bowl; the texture was created with some of the Nick Agar attachments for the mini grinder and a custom pyrography tip which cuts into the wood. The colour uses a similar technique to Green Dragon i.e. acrylic paint and dry brushing plus liquid leaf to highlight some of the pyrographed sections.

I was honoured to find out that my Ebonised Oak Vase had been bought and is now part of The Daniel Collection, a prestigious private collection of turned wood.

This is a hollowed oak vase, textured and ebonised using a vinegar and steel wool mixture which reacts with the oak to turn it black. I added a metallic highlight to emphasise the tops of the ridges.

The third piece exhibited was a Green Dragon bowl. This was newly made for the exhibition, the wood chosen especially for its lovely figuring!

Fire Dragon

Ebonised Oak Vase

Green Dragon