Thursday, January 28, 2010

DIY Antler

Sometime last year Stephanie gave me an antler, which I much appreciated, but didn't really know what to do with. Well, recently I decided I had had enough of it loafing around the house and told it to get a job or I would kick it's ass to the curb. It decided to be a decorative wall mount, which can also be used to hold many things.

Long time family friend Michael Heumann graciously donated a decorative piece of wood he had lying about, as well as much of his expertise to help see this project to fruition. I stained the wood Cherry Red for a distinguished look and then added several layers of varnish to it for a nice sheen. This also darkened the piece and brought out the natural wood grain. One of the challenges was that we wanted the wood to lay flush against the wall. I found some hooks at the hardware store to achieve this, but got stuck without a router to create the grooves necessary for the inlay. Luckily I had some wood carving tools lying around for printmaking and was able to make the grooves myself. This was a lot more labor intensive, but took less time than it would have to locate a router.



We made sure to drill through the wood and the antler at the same angle so it would attach well and be strong enough to hold the weight of a jacket. In the end it came out pretty good I think. Especially considering it was my first project of this kind. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.







And this is a view of my corner of the room. That ship painting is a recent acquisition from The Union Gospel Mission thrift store out in Tigard. There are always finds to be found out there.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A is for Arthur




Well it's finally happened. My computer has shut down on me and refuses to restart long enough for me to even retrieve my library cd that's still in the drive. While I work out schemes to get a new computer/fix my old one The Nimble Owl has graciously allowed me to use her computer for all my blogging and hulu watching needs.

I've been slacking a bit recently on the blogging, but only because I've been working on some more time intensive projects as well as dealing with my broken computer. Here's a sketch I whipped up that may turn into something more polished. I actually originally intended for poor Arthur's head to be in frame, if you can believe that. Now to enjoy the last bit of this ever fading sunlight. Brief but oh so wondrous.