I saw a random image of this Doctor Strange symbol while surfing the interwebs last week and thought “that would make a cool clock design.” Appropriately, this symbol also adorned his pendant holding the Time Stone. I had an old clock left in our house by the previous owner I’d been saving for just such a project. However, it turned out the clock mechanism didn’t actually work – so I bought a new super cheap set of hardware. 😂 I cut the background from partially spalted yellowheart, the symbol from walnut, and the frame edge from mahogany (which is actually from a very thin piece of scrap, cut and glued to the yellowheart). I don’t have the tools or practice for cutting precision angled segments like this on a table saw (e.g. a good miter gauge or sled). So I just designed all the cuts in Illustrator and cut everything on my scrollsaw.
May I present “Freddie Chirpury” the song sparrow! Named by @tam_a_ryn, he’s ruled our backyard since we moved in 4 yrs ago. He lives a hard life. He’s been forced to raise many a brown-headed cowbird (obligate brood parasites). We’ve seen his chicks brutally snatched by our resident blue jay Hunter multiple times. He always looks rough and disheveled by the end of the summer from trying to raise 3 broods of chicks. One year he tried to do it alone after his lady disappeared. He only successfully fledged the cowbird that time, who was twice his size.
But despite the failures, loss, and constant work just to survive, he keeps on keeping on, singing right outside our bedroom all year, year after year.
Unlike the ubiquitous and non-native house sparrows, song sparrow couples are solitary and tend to pick a territory and stick to it, defending and constantly shouting their ownership (the male anyway). This is their “song,” a repeating glorious aria declaring “this is mine, bitch, so stay the hell out!” Of course there’s some love song mixed in there as well.
One fascinating fact I learned from watching them: once they’ve begun nesting/chick-rearing, the male and female make constant little “Marco”… “Polo” squeaks, basically pinging each other to maintain contact and location awareness. “Right here. All is well,” back and forth all day every day. I’ve also learned that their voices are distinct. The others in the neighborhood just sound different to me now.
Based on a beautiful photo by Jared McCall @jaredm871@ingrainednaturecreations, I initially designed it to have branches and a full background. But this clef design popped into my head. My wife’s excitement when I showed her cemented it, and I ditched the old version. Built from 11 species, all cut on #scrollsaw: black walnut, Peruvian walnut, spalted maple, curly maple, tree of Heaven, wenge, sapele, black locust, holly, ebony, with a cherry clef.
A block from our house lives a couple with 2 daughters. We’ve never actually met them, though we’ve said “hi” or exchanged nods many times when we used to walk Bandit by their house (he loved their corner). Every year they plant a long beautiful row of sunflowers directly across from my bus stop, which makes my morning commute significantly brighter. The girls also regularly decorate the sidewalk with chalk drawings. More than once they’ve left a question or greeting on the sidewalk for passers by, and my wife has responded with her own drawings (we may have bought chalk solely for this purpose). Basically, they make our neighborhood a happier place. This was particularly helpful when walks around the neighborhood were all we had during covid and Bandit’s decline at the end.
So I decided to make a simple sunflower and leave it on their porch. I intended for it to be even simpler and quicker than this… but many of you know how that usually goes for me. I assume they’ll find me here and see this. So I’ll just say: Hi neighbors! We’re Daniel and Tamaryn. Thanks for brightening up the neighborhood!
I made this “intarsia” over 3 days from yellowheart (also called “pau amarello”; from Brazil) and black walnut from our neighborhood. No paint/stain. The simple center patterned was burned via pyrography. It’s finished with oil only. It will probably end up weathering outside, but that’s the nature of wood, and it could end up even prettier with age. Or it could fall apart. lol. It’s a mystery! Slap some more oil on it next year to revitalize it. Or let the girls paint it. Or just let nature slowly reclaim it.
I grew up with red foxes on our property in Arkansas and have loved them ever since, seeing many over the years in NC and now PA. A family of them, including two new kits, live up the road in a nearby cemetery; they served as the impetus to create this piece, which I’ve had bouncing around in my head ever since I picked up this amazing orange wood.
Meet Cad Bane, one of the coolest bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe (voiced by Corey Burton). This piece is roughly based on an artwork by the extraordinarily talented @daztibbles. I’ve taken a lot of liberties with it – his level of detail is impossible to translate to wood with high fidelity. Most of the piece uses only the natural colors of the different wood species, with the exception of the face, eyes, gums, and tongue. I additionally added a bit of my neighbors weathered pine fence in an attempt to give it a slightly “Western” accent.
As with almost all my Star Wars pieces, it will now adorn my tiny, dirty Star Wars-themed “shop bathroom”. 😂 I think we’re gonna need a bigger bathroom…
Species used: regular and curly maple, mahogany, sapele, mesquite, padauk, walnut, Lombardy poplar, wenge, cherry, mulberry, holly, yew.
