woodpiercing 101

Following on last weeks post, I attended a wood piercing workshop on Saturday along with 8 other creative people from my woodturning club and had a blast !!! Not only did I take part in an inspiring class, but I had great fun playing "catchup" with other club members that I have not seen in several years! #woodturning #woodpiercing

The instructor of the class, Joe Cornell, had pre-borrowed 2 videos from our club library on wood piercing by the man that I consider the master, Binh Pho. I scampered home with a video and watched it several times and then rushed to my computer to buy his two books. The first arrives today and I will drool over it happily, learn, absorb and be inspired.

I am still in the woodpiercing 101 stage, learning how to use my new toys to achieve the effects that I want, this is super frustrating because I feel like a child who hasn't even mastered wax crayons hovering over a loaded easel of oil paints! I know what I want to achieve but I don't yet have the skills required to get there. But the good news is that I am beginning to know where I am going. Which, I believe, is just about half way to the prize! Our instructor said something along the lines of "copied pieces will never make you famous, but they are a great learning tool." I totally agree, take inspiration from other peoples work, learn, let their work spark ideas and then run with them and make them your own.

In his work, Binh Pho made beautiful use of the airbrush, creating panels of glorious color on his vessels before piercing them. I had purchased an airbrush several years ago and had never even taken it out of the box. So, on to another new trick, I had a go at airbrushing. Yet again, I found myself in the frustrating position of knowing what I wanted to achieve but lacked the expertise and experience to achieve it. I did have fun though, until I blocked the nozzle with a lump of ink. I have acrylic inks in the cupboard that I haven't used in several years, because impatience is a problem for me, instead of waiting for the arrival of fresh ink, I went ahead and used the old inks. The first piece went just fine, so brimming with confidence I went on to try 2 more pieces and blocked the nozzle with a lump of ink! I tried the "fixes" in the pamphlet that came with the airbrush, nothing doing, so I took the the nozzle apart to see if I could physically unblock it. Yup, fools rush in where angels fear to tread and I now I need to figure out how to reassemble it. The teeny-weeny little nut is just not threading! Funny how that happens, things often come apart fairly easily but getting them back together in a functional state is the trick! #airbrush #airbrusing

Our instructor Joe was kind enough to hand out thin veneers of various woods for us to experiment with and get some experience with the techniques involved in the piercing of different woods. I took a piece of his Redwood, divided it into 4 sections, thinking that I could decorate it and then slice it up to make a tiny square lamp with a little battery light inside. Ambition is a fine thing! But anyway, here is the finished panel, slicing still to be attempted! The airbrusing is too thick, I used the opaque inks I had instead of waiting for the translucent ones, but the idea is there! The piercing is very rough and ready, wobbly and raw, but the good news is that practice does indeed make perfect, so I am happily continuing to practice!

As always, my blog posts are open for comment and I look forward to hearing your ideas!