Next I had to unify those elements into a sculptural concept. I went right to my wood scrap pile. It is mostly made up of the sometimes exotic leftovers from my brother's wood projects. In the scrap pile I found an interesting large bowl remnant made from cherry, maple and padauk wood. After trimming off the excess board ends and sanding the wood, I added a small wenge wood platform at the top of each end of the arch, with a heavy bent wire suspended in between them. I attached that structure to a yellowheart wood baseboard, and coated all of the wood surfaces with satin polyeurethane. As for the acorns, I first had to bake them to dry them out. After baking them, I removed the caps from the nuts and I coated both parts with polyeurethane to seal them. I then spray painted the nut portion and epoxied the caps back on. I attached these with wood pegs and glue to the higher of the 2 platforms. Now I was ready to tackle making the squirrel that would be placed on the opposing platform. |
*This piece can be viewed in the juried show 'Autumn', from Oct. 4th through Nov. 7th at River Arts Gallery in Damariscotta.