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Grinling moved

October 15, 2020 by Bob Easton 1 Comment

The Grinling Gibbons Society - Celebrating 300 years of his Life and Legacy

More than a lifetime, 300 years! When we make thing to “last a lifetime,” do we ever imagine them lasting 300 years? Many of Grinling Gibbons carvings have done just that. Next year, 2021, will bring the 300th anniversary of his death, and celebrations are being planned by a newly formed British Grinling Gibbons Society. Those plans aren’t quite online yet, but I’m watching for their announcements and will add them here as soon as they appear.

Bigger and Better

Photo of Grinling Gibbons statue at the V&A Museum

Hannah Phillip, Programme Director of the Grinling Gibbons Tercentenary, contacted me a few months ago while she was getting started planning the tercentenary events. Hearing of the events, I decided to make my previously published Gibbons articles and photos freely available for the Tercentenary.

photo of zooming in 3 steps

So, I’ve moved them from this hobby blog to a new home all their own. I’ve also upped the ante on photo resolution. All of my own photos are available in the full resolutions that come out of the cameras. Yes, we have images of manageable bandwidth on web page articles, but click through to get the full detail. A couple of hundred images from 13 locations exist now, and I’ve reserved space for a couple more locations where Hannah might enable us to take yet more photos … when pandemic travel permits.

Since one of my early goals was to bring more, and larger, photos of Gibbons work into being for all who care about them, all of my photos at the new site are being offered as “Public Domain” under the Creative Commons Zero, CC0, license. The Tercentenary organizers, you, and anyone else can use my photos as you please without license constraints.

Visit the new Grinling Gibbons Photo site.

P.S. In addition to the photos Eva and I managed to capture on two trips to London, I have included articles about modern day woodcarvers who imitate Gibbons in their own unique and beautiful ways: David Esterly, Patrick Damiaens and Alexander Grabovetskiy.

Filed Under: Grinling Gibbons, Woodcarving

Bowl #4

June 24, 2020 by Bob Easton 4 Comments

  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl - bottom

Ambrosia Maple. Length: about 13″ – Width: about 8 & 1/2″ – Height: about 4″ – Finish: food safe flaxseed oil

This log came from tree maintenance along a wooded road to the South of Lake Welch in Harriman State Part, NY. It was one of the logs I asked about a few months ago. From that query, I learned about the Ambrosia beetle and its habit of burrowing into a tree to establish nesting space. The beetles who inhabited this tree are long gone, but they left their large marks and a few tiny bore holes.

photo - rough shaping

The log rested in a plastic bag for a couple of months before I started on it. By the time I started, it had dried a bit and was as hard as one expects of Maple. I did a lot of the rough shaping using my newly built bowl horse. [ Bowl horse design from David Fisher. ]

I always find it interesting to see how many chips result from carving. Two pics show the bowl. The first is after roughing, with all the chips from that process, and the second is after final carving with those chips. The chips become garden mulch.

  • photo of bowl #4 - work in progress
  • photo - bowl and chips - 2

FWIW. This bowl is, at the time of this posting, currently lost in the mail. I posted it for a destination in Europe while in the midst of lockdown mania. The post office wasn’t aware at that time that mail to Europe was being held at various points along the way. Some European countries were rejecting entry of all mail and have only recently opened their gates. We have yet to discover whether the package actually arrived in Europe, or is being held at a big airport on the U.S. east coast, or … ??? — UPDATE: arrived at its destination after elebenty-seven days in transit.

Filed Under: bowl carving, green woodworking, Woodcarving

Bowl # 5 – Spring Chicken

May 17, 2020 by Bob Easton 1 Comment

Basswood. Length: 8.5″ Width: 4.5″ Height: 3.25″ Finish: Artist acrylic paints

This one is an experiment in finding the right shape. Again, inspiration from David Fisher, talking about his hens … one of which is the direct inspiration for this bowl. My “aha” moment came when I realized one does not need a crook to make a bird shape. A good block with a roof-peak shape will do.

Rather than hack into a hard maple log, I made this miniature from a 3x3x9 block of basswood. It was good practice in finding the right shape, and easier carving all along the way.

Filed Under: bowl carving, Woodcarving

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