The beauty of gnarled wood.

As regular visitors may be aware I love wood. I don�t know why maybe it�s the texture, or the feel of it or just the organic shapes that it forms or maybe all of these things. Wood is such a versatile material I can�t help but admire it.

When I came across this gnarled old tree�

with its limbs all askew I just had to take a picture.

It�s sometimes sad to see tree stumps like this one when you know that the tree itself is long gone. I wonder how long the tree had stood there what things had gone on around it and what it had been used for after it had been felled.

The wood has probably gone on to be shaped into furniture or sculptured into works of art or even used to heat a home and it�s good to see that responsible land owners are now planting 2 to 3 new trees for every one they chop down.

As this tree stump has started to rot away the inside has sprouted new plants and when I zoomed in with my camera and took a closer shot it almost looked as if it was a cliff with trees growing at the bottom.

 

Ok maybe I�m being fanciful in seeing that or just got an active imagination but it still makes a good picture.

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The beauty of wood.

As regular readers of my blog are aware I love to carve wood.

Wood has a magical quality to it. The texture, look and shape is different in every piece you find.

So, when I found this large round with its amazing textures and shapes I just had to get my camera and shoot off a few photos.

When you look at a piece of wood like this you wonder just what stories it could tell.

How did it form this way?

Also what can it be used for? At the moment it is decoration in the garden, but who knows what the future holds for it. 

My wife describes me as the techi and she the tree hugger but I'm sure even techi's are allowed to enjoy wood too.

Nature is such a wonderful thing that you just have to love it.

Woodworking Show, Springfields Spalding.

Went with my Dad this morning to The Springfields Woodworking & Power Tool Show.

The show was held there for the first time last year and they are hoping to have it as an annual event. It is on this year from 11th to 13th June 2010 at the Springfields exhibition centre, Spalding, Lincolnshire. Opening times are 10am to 4pm daily.

The show has a range of stalls. Some are run by companies others by individual woodworking clubs.

The quality of the carving and woodturning on display on some of the stalls is outstanding.

The Rockingham Forest Carvers stall was full of examples by Glyn Mould and his students.

Some of the carving was very intricate and obviously entailed a lot of hard work and time to complete such as the book in this photo which includes the music of The Oak & the Ash carved onto the page of the book.

Glyn gives weekly lessons in the techniques of woodcarving in his workshops at Sacrewell farm.

I think I need to enrol!

Another very talented carver is Colin Hickman. His range of intricately carved animal figurines as walking stick heads was a joy to behold.

The detail he is able to produce right down to the individual hairs on the dogs head (above) is amazing, something I have no chance of competing with any time soon.

Lots of the exhibits just used the beauty of the natural wood to finish their works of art.

Not so Bob Neill, he uses pyrographic techniques to add definition to his pieces then colouring them to produce stunning selections of highly coloured and textured plates bowls and engravings.

Pyrography is the art of burning designs on timber. There was an opportunity on his stall to have a go at the techniques yourself. Its not as easy as it looks and involves a very light touch if you don't want to just produce a charred bit of wood.

As well as wood carving there was lots of demonstrations of woodworking lathes and the wood-turning tricks used on them to produce the fabulous bowls, clocks, pens and a myriad of other objects.

One of these demonstrators is Tony Wilson (Above) demonstrating on the Hegner uk Ltd stand.

Tony sitting at his lathe in his wheelchair is one of the fastest workers I have seen, and he makes the work he does seem effortless.

The show was really worth going to, entrance was free and it was packed with people able and willing to give demonstrations of their work and pass on lots of hints and tips of their trades.

Going around the show has re-kindled my interest in woodcarving and I think I will seriously look at taking some lessons later this year.

Wood Carving

Just thought I'd share with you a couple of shots of my other passion, wood carving.



These hearts I carved for my wife for valentines day.
I found a piece of fire wood that just shouted this shape to me, so whilst watching a weeks worth of late night films I carved this using a couple of knives.




A Fathers Love was carved for my daughters birthday,



Her love of books, my love of her and my love of wood carving combined to create this wooden book I aptly named A Fathers Love.