Here’s a crowned bird and flower design from inspiration to carving. The original artist is unknown, but little paintings like this one (c. 1840) were sometimes given by teachers as rewards to students. The bird may or may not have symbolized the soul, as birds are intermediaries between earth and heaven; if so, is this one crowned in glory? Or do these little guys just look better with something on their heads?
We have reached the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel season for photography along the Eno River. I haven’t done much with the photo challenge this month, but can we call this dreamy? I guess it depends on what you dream about.
Time for mountain laurel in the Piedmont.
There is something incomparably stupid about struggling to sketch distelfink-and-flower designs out of one’s head while a two-volume set titled Pennsylvania German Fraktur, containing 1000 images and purchased at not inconsiderable cost, sits literally two feet in front of one’s eyes. More to come.
Sometimes in designing furniture you use classical proportions and the golden ratio. And then sometimes the thing has to fit under a window whose sill is at 25”, and you have a 14”-wide board that determines the depth of the top, and you want to maximize storage, so 14x25x36 it is. No magic here.
According to Wikipedia, the genome of the loblolly pine is seven times as large as that of humans. Make of this what you will.
Five-lined skink. I tried highlighting the tail with blue paint but could not keep the edges clean, so I used the frame to (I hope) evoke the color.
Apparently I have bachelor buttons in my yard! The seed mixes I scattered last year included some perennials that will bloom for the first time this spring… so I really have no idea what a lot of this green stuff is until the blossoms open. Surprises every week.
Today, Haiku Day
The sun rises, the sun sets.
Who decides this stuff?
I was asked recently whether a stool like the one I just posted takes a long time to make. The answer is no and yes. If I have a piece of wood wide enough for a seat (or have already glued one up) I can go from boards to assembly in a fat half a day. But then the glue has to dry overnight before I can trim and level the stool, and there are 2 colors of milk paint with 1-3 coats each, plus 2-3 coats of oil/wax… so if I start work Monday morning I can have a stool-like object by early afternoon that I still may not be able to take to a market on Saturday.
Not to mention my inner sense of how long things take has more to do with effort than with actual time, so I am constantly fooled—in both directions.