Latest From the Woodshop – Alaskan Birch Bowls

I probably won’t be around much this weekend.

I’ll be here.

I’m looking forward to the symposium, it’ll be nice to spend the weekend with fellow turners.

 

I’m bringing a couple of my bowls along. I thought you might like to see them.

 

This first piece is Alaskan white birch.  It’s from a large tree that was felled near my house here in the MatSu, by a road crew clearing the right of way for a new road.  The tree grew in the open on high ground, a place with plenty of sun, and as such there was almost none of the figure and dark heartwood grain common in the wood I usually work with. The blank was almost pure white.  Which is fine, if you like that kind of thing.

Me? I thought it was boring.

So I thought I experiment with a little color.

This piece was created using water-based aniline dye, it took several months to do. I’m fairly happy with how it came out. I like the combination of colors – strangely it looks almost exactly as I envisioned it when I started out, that almost never happens to me. It’s about 12” in diameter.

 

This second piece is one of my signature designs.  The carved red salmon are my personal trademark. They accent a lot of my high end work. This is a piece of spalted Alaskan birch burl. The fish are each hand carved from more burl. The idea here is based on the annual salmon spawning migration. This is a fairly large piece, about 14” at the rim.

 

You may see some updates this weekend.

But I wouldn’t count on it.