Nov
24
Wooden Baby Rattles
Here are a couple wooden baby rattles I designed and built for friends.
Aug
28
Momo Avatar Wooden Art
“Momo,” Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020
“Momo”, 2020, wood intarsia, no paint/stain, except the eyes.
My niece @dorky_artista recently convinced me to watch “Avatar: the Last Airbender”. I had already been considering it since I’m a huge Dave Filoni fan (Clone Wars, Rebels, now head of Lucasfilm animation, and was involved in Mandalorian), who got his start with Avatar.
Let me just say that, despite being a show “for kids”, it really lived up to the hype in terms of superb emotional storytelling and character development. I became an instant fan. Such memorable characters!
As I was watching I randomly had the thought “I have to make Momo for my niece!”. I didn’t even initially intend for it to be a birthday present. It was gonna be a “just because I love you present”. But I saw her bday coming up, and thought “perfect!!”.
Then as I designed it I thought “this is too cute. I have to make a matching one for me too.” So I made two of them. 😂
Made from holly, maple, walnut, ebony, yew, elm, and a cherry background. @chestnutproducts Spirit stains for the irises.
Aug
27
Guillermo, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020
“Guillermo”, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020
Wooden intarsia art. 23 species of wood, no paint/stain.
Im happy to finally post the final shots of this piece devoted to everyone’s favorite Vampire familiar/slayer!
After watching “What We Do in the Shadows” (@theshadowsfx) on @fxnetworks, this idea randomly hit me one day and it was one of those “well I guess I have no choice but to make this now” deals. I felt compelled. After I began, I must admit that a big motivation came from the Guillermo actor himself, Mr. Harvey Guillén (@harveyguillen). It turns out, Harvey is a pretty rad guy in real (virtual) life and gave me tons of private encouragement and funny little quips he’d rather I not share for reasons that would be obvious 😜. Needless to say, my inner geek was pretty stoked to be chatting about an artwork with the actor who inspired it! Harvey is easily 1 of the 4 funniest characters on the show and everyone should watch it. 😜
The best part? Harvey Guillen himself now owns this piece!!!
This piece is is roughly based on a promo from FX marketing. I wanted to add a little more detail to highlight the duality behind Guillermo’s loyalty as a familiar/desire to become a vampire and his apparently inherent penchant for slayage. The sun, fire, and door represent his first hilarious kill. Of course I added the stake bandolier and a crossbow. But astute fans will note that the bandolier also contains his trusty “Tide to go” pen for clean-up duties. The promo had the bat wings as sort of a looming presence. But I see them here more as Guillermo’s desire to become a Vamp and “BAT!” away with Nandor (@kayvan_novak). The font is based on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
Constructed from maple, zebra wood, Brazilian rosewood, bocote, wenge, katalox, ebony, holly, sapele, mahogany, walnut, chakte viga, redheart, purpleheart, yellowheart, mesquite, bloodwood, honey locust, elm, ash, yellow pine, Douglas fir, luaun ply.
Jul
19
Bandit, Daniel D. Brown, 2020
“Bandit”, Daniel D. Brown, 2020
Bandit (AKA Bandaman, Bandito, Bdog, Bandy, Sweet Pea).
I’ve been wanting to make a wooden Bandit ever since I started creating intarsias. But as some of you know, Bandy hasn’t been doing so great lately. In fact, while making this, he began coughing a lot and was subsequently diagnosed with congestive heart failure (So far the meds seem to be working, though they will exacerbate his kidney disease). He’s almost 14 and already has chronic kidney disease, 1 blind eye and 1 deaf ear. But he’s had a pretty sweet life and almost zero health problems until the last couple years. @tamarynart got him as a gift from her ex when she was 19!! And I’ve now been his daddy for half that time. And he’s been the absolute best fur-son I could ever have hoped for. He pretty much has to be cuddling one of us at all times, and I’ve never met a friendlier dog.
Made from sycamore and crab apple. This is the second time I‘ve actually stained one of these pieces. But I wanted the colors to be pretty close to correct. I used @chestnutproducts Spirit Stains.
Oh, and just to preempt: I’m not particularly interested in doing pet portrait commissions. Unless you’re like super rich, then maaaybe. 😂 But @ingrainedmoments_woodcraft makes amazing pet portraits a step or 10 above mine!
Jul
03
Blue Jay, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D. 2020
I finally finished this little blue jay intarsia piece, trying something a little different this time by experimenting with alcohol inks (there are no blue woods as there are no blue pigments in birds – look it up). I have to thank the amazing artist @ingrainedmoments_woodcraft for recommending @chestnutproducts Spirit Stains. Her work is gorgeous!
This piece was inspired by our new bird friend “Hunter”, who has provided practically a David Attenborough-level of wildlife backyard drama during this pandemic. He became relatively habituated to @tamarynart and I, and would “ask” us for nuts multiple times a day. Several times he appeared to “thank” us with a post-nut squawk (clear communication of some sort), and it seems like he may have even tried to barter a few times with cherries he brought us from a nearby tree (taking the nuts, leaving the cherry). Anthropomorphizing aside, he’s an incredibly clever bird. He mated and raised at least 1 chick. Sadly, he also slaughtered and ate Freddie Chirpury the song sparrow’s chicks (hence the name Hunter). This is nature’s way. Very little in nature comes without a mix of beauty, triumph, and tragedy.
