Gnarly Man, Gnarly Tree, Gnarly Wood

In the 1980s when we lived in the mountains in the Sierra Nevada in California, our neighbor, Fred, carved this gnarly man for us. We unpacked him the other day and hung him on our wood retaining wall in our front yard. I started thinking about how trees grow in so many different shapes and sizes with burls, knots, and growth rings, hence my choice of the word gnarly. I thought about all the uses trees provide such as the raw material for art, shade, fruit, furniture, and homes. Trees also clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.

After we unloaded the lumber for my painting projects I was inspired to make this gnarly tree bowl. The bowl is about eleven inches in diameter and about three inches deep. We had an electrician over yesterday and it won't be overly expensive to get the wiring done for a kiln so he's coming today for that. So it looks like I'll be getting a kiln after all. 

We couldn't think of a place to store the gnarly wood we got yesterday so we put it under my studio table. It's not optimum but I wanted to keep the wood in a dry location out of the weather. All the wood I am getting has been harvested from dead or downed trees. It has been kiln dried and cut to lengths and widths manageable for my purposes. Gary worked at a mill in Arkansas and we learned the lengths of wood placed under the stack are called 'stickers'. These are used to keep lumber up off the ground and also used between stacks of lumber to keep air circulating around them.

I chose several sections of Eastern red cedar, sycamore, and walnut. As we loaded the wood into my car I couldn't help thinking some of the pieces would make a beautiful natural edge table top. Who knows where this recent foray into wood will take me. I'll pull off the stack one piece at a time and set it up on saw horses and belt sand the pieces. Then I'll fine sand them. Next I'll stain them with a water based stain and then I'll paint on them. Of course today I'm wondering what I've gotten  myself into. We shall see. Stay tuned for more details. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Slip Decorating Butterflies

Last night I thought about embellishing the butterflies on the wall pocket I slipped yesterday. So I started out practicing with an outline of a butterfly drawn on a scrap of paper. I practiced with the three different colors of slip I made: ivy green, sky blue and best black. I made the colored slip by mixing mason stains into slip which was made from the same clay body I have used for the pieces I created.


For the outline of the butterfly on the wall pocket, I used stickers I purchased from the dollar store. I got the idea of using stickers from Lori's blog, Fine Mess Pottery. I place the stickers where I want the clay color to remain, then I paint the colored slip over the whole piece. When the slip dries, I peel off the sticker and put it back on the paper it came on. I found out I can wipe the slip off the sticker and re-use the sticker. Talk about recycling.


As I was embellishing the butterflies, I was wishing I had more colors to play with, maybe yellow or orange, but I want to see how these colors turn out before investing in any more colors. Very little slip is needed to paint the lines and circles on the butterflies which means the slip will last a very long time. I think my painting on paper is better than it is on the clay, but I like the butterflies on the wall pocket better than just the plain white color of the clay showing through.

What do you think about my just putting clear glaze on the inside of the pocket and leaving the outside slipped but not glazed? That way water could be put inside but the outside would remain the muted color it is now? Of course, I don't really know what the Cone 10 temperature will do to the color, it may be a lot darker when it gets fired or it may burn out or flake off. Hope not though.


While I was working in my studio, I created quite a mess with paint brushes, tubs of slip, paper bowls with more slip in them, and on and on. I guess sometimes you have to make a mess to be creative. As I was painting away, a huge squall of rain, sleet, and hail was erupting outside.


When I left the studio I saw Black Mountain has snow down to the 2,000 foot elevation. The top of Black Mountain is obscured by clouds. Black Mountain has one of the finest groves of Giant Sequoia throughout the range of Big Trees. From my house I can see the outline of the Giant Sequoia trees on the top of Black Mountain even though the mountain is about five miles away. That gives you an idea of the size of these trees. To visit the Giant Sequoias is a very humbling and awesome experience. My elevation is 1,000 feet, I wonder if we will have any snow in the morning?