Carving the 'Jackie Collins Inspirational Woman of the Year' award 2017

Last year, I was commissioned to make this award for the Penny Brohn UK cancer charity. It was a real pleasure to be asked to do the same this year.

The award was to be presented to Jo Malone MBE, who is well-known for creating perfumes and fragrances. I used timber from a cedar tree that was cut down in the grounds of the charity's offices in Bristol, which was an off-cut left over after making the 2016 award.

The award was designed to be the kind of thing that Jo would like to have. Apparently she is a very practical person, so it made sense to produce an award that would have a practical use. A bowl seemed ideal, as it can be both beautiful and useful.

The shape was inspired by the leaf of a pomelo, which is the key scent note in Jo's new line of 'Jo Loves' fragrances. These leaves are quite distinctive, having secondary leaflets coming off the petiole (the stem of the leaf).

Image from: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/moorea/dicots2.html

It seemed appropriate to use cedar wood to make the bowl for a person who works with scents, as the wood has such a distinctive smell of its own.

Most of the shaping was done with power tools, for speed and also because I find that power tools often give a better result when working with softwoods such as cedar.

The words carved onto the bowl - 'Passion, Resilience and Creativity' - were chosen by someone who works closely with Jo, as they were felt to be particularly important to her.

The bowl was finished with a good-quality finishing oil and was presented to Jo at the end of May 2017. Here's a photo, supplied by Penny Brohn UK and used with their permission:

Carving an award for Penny Brohn UK, to be given to a very deserving person

Penny Brohn UK  are a charity working with people who have cancer. They contacted me recently to ask if I could make an award to thank a remarkable person called Nina Barough for her hard work raising money for cancer charities.

Among other things, Nina founded Walk the Walk events, which have been hugely successful. They have raised millions for organisations helping those affected by cancer. 

The folks at Penny Brohn were very keen to present her with a thank you gift carved using timber from a recently-cut Cedar of Lebanon in their grounds. It also had to be carved for a deadline in a month's time.

While cedar is a fairly stable wood as it seasons, using the green timber did mean that certain things had to be considered. Seasoning timber will move and change and the design had to take this into account. I normally carve timber that has been seasoned for much longer but I do also love a challenge!

Slices were cut from the log, keeping the rings as close to being at right angles to the large surfaces as possible. This means that the seasoning wood moves mainly in one plane (at right angles to the rings), rather than warping all over the place. 

The piece of wood wasn't really big enough to get a single large slab from, so I decided to join smaller bits together carefully. It took a few tests to find the best glue to use (Bostik Wood Adhesive) but eventually they glued well. I like the bands of differing colours through the timber.

After drawing the design that they had requested on to the timber directly, I started carving. The cedar carved very cleanly, even though many other softwoods don't.

The bands of colour worked nicely in the design as fields going into the distance. When the carving was completed, it looked good but I wanted to put a frame around it that would hold the cedar panel and account for any movement in seasoning.  Some seasoned ash timber was ideal. 

The frame has a small gap between it and the cedar, with the panel being held by four dowels (two at the top and two at the bottom) that aren't glued into it but are glued into the frame. This means that any movement in the cedar panel will just travel along the dowels and the assembly won't be weakened by the change. The finishing touch was a brass plaque with an inscription that was fixed to the frame.

A representative from Penny Brohn UK collected the plaque and seemed very happy with it. I suggested to her that it be hung somewhere away from direct sun and sources of heat such as radiators (to stop it drying too fast). 

Apparently Nina was very happy to have received the award and it now hangs on her wall. Here's a photo from the award ceremony, kindly supplied by Penny Brohn UK and used with their permission:

Working with LinkAge to teach younger and older people woodcarving in Shirehampton's Tithe Barn, in Bristol

LinkAge work to bring younger and older people together on projects, to promote communication between two groups that don't always get the chance to meet in such positive environments.

I've worked with LinkAge before, on a project to make a bench for Shirehampton in Bristol. It was a  pleasure to be invited back to work with them again for two days at Shirehampton's Tithe Barn. 

The young people who came all attend 'The Orb', which is associated with the local Oasis Academy Brightstowe school. 

The Orb particularly caters for students who aren't getting on well with conventional education. Chatting to some of them, it was very interesting to hear their thoughts on the normal classroom environment. They all enjoyed the opportunity that The Orb gave to be able to have a say in organising their studies to fit the way that they learn, rather than being forced into the normal routines of the classroom.

Eileen was also hard at work over the two days, creating a carved oak plaque for her garden.

I think that everyone attending learned quite a bit about woodworking. There was a choice: either making plaques from cedar or oak wood to take home or working on a bench for the garden at the barn.

Making the bench first involved cutting the oak legs to length using a bow saw - no mean feat!

 The seat was then shaped, using a drawknife to round the edges.

It then needed to have holes drilled into it and to be carved with designs that had been drawn on, showing the barn and a design of cart special to the area.

Two of the young people also carved and assembled a plaque for The Orb using a bow saw off cut, as a nice surprise for the staff there.

The bench came out really well and will last a long time, as it is made from durable oak and sweet chestnut timbers.

Thanks to Ricky, Susan and Laura at LinkAge and to everyone who came along for their hard work on the two sessions. I also had some very happy news on this project.

Ricky, who is one of the senior workers at LinkAge, told me that they felt that the previous benchmaking project that I'd led for them had gone so well that they were now using it as an example in funding applications and other important publicity work.

They had asked me to run some of these new sessions for them because it was particularly important that, as part of a major new project, they went well. They felt that I'd be able to help ensure that the new sessions were a success. I've got to say that it was very satisfying to hear how pleased they were with my work.

Teaching woodcarving at Perry Court primary school in Bristol

The weather was hot and sunny last Friday as I set up to teach woodcarving at Perry Court primary school in Hengrove, Bristol.

Ben at Youth Moves had invited me along. They work with young people from around the area and I'd previously worked with Ben a few times, including doing pendant carving at the Northern Slopes 'Wildfest' in Knowle. The carvers were all in their final year at the primary school, so were aged about ten or eleven years old.

Each person got a block of cedar wood and they were invited to carve an animal or plant onto it. I chose to use cedar as it is durable outdoors, easier than some other softwoods to carve and it was available!

 

When everyone had produced their carvings,  one of the students helped me to assemble the blocks and fix them onto a frame.

The school has recently begun work on an art/nature trail through some trees on one side of the grounds. While I was carving with year 6 pupils, Nick from Olas art was making colourful signs with other students, to be put up elsewhere on the trail.

After we'd finished assembling the wooden frieze...

... it was tied onto some trees along the trail with sturdy rope, so as to cause as little damage to the trees as possible.

A great way to spend a sunny afternoon!

From a log to a carved plaque - making a carving from a cedar tree that had been cut down.

I recently completed an interesting carved plaque for the St Monica Trust in Bristol. The trust runs retirement homes and nursing homes around Bristol and wanted a gift for the chairman Gerald Lee, who is retiring from his post.

A much-loved Himalayan cedar (deodar) tree was recently felled in the grounds of the Cote Lane site and the Trust wanted to use some of the timber to create a gift for Mr Lee.

The tree surgeons took away most of the timber, so there were only sections of branches that they didn't want left behind with diameters of 18cm (7") or less. The tree was also felled a matter of months ago, so the timber was unseasoned and would not be seasoned by the deadline for the presentation of the piece. Two interesting challenges to think about. I obviously told the clients about these considerations before beginning work!

I decided to quarter-saw the timber so that the rings were at right angles to the widest flat faces of the 'boards'. This means that, when they are glued together, the wood of the plaque will shrink and expand sideways and will hopefully not warp as it seasons.

I was not so worried about the timber cracking, as cedar seems to be fairly stable and not too badly prone to that. Carving the logs in the round seemed risky though, as the tensions set up as the wood dried would make such a sculpture more likely to crack than a flat panel would be.

The quarter-sawn pieces were quite small, as the logs weren't big to begin with, however they glued well to make a board that was big enough. The smell of the cut cedar was very strong; I don't think my workshop will have moth problems for a long time to come. Let's hope the smell of cedar repels other insects too (like furniture beetles!)

After the glue had dried, the boards were trimmed and run over a planer thicknesser to get a nice, even thickness throughout.

The design was to be a sundial, which is the logo of the St Monica Trust,  together with the motto 'Tempus fugit, caritas manet' (which means 'time flies, love remains') and a short text. It was laid out on paper and then transferred onto the surface of the timber. The sundial was carved in relief using traditional hand tools and the lettering, in an informal 'Chancery' style, was carved using a Dremel multitool. The cedar proved to be lovely timber to carve.

And here's the finished plaque:

A carved cedar log as a sign for Rock Meadow, a new housing development in the Forest of Dean

This carved Cedar of Lebanon log is a sign for a new development at Redmarley in the Forest of Dean and was commissioned by Severn Vale Housing.

The piece has been carved to show animals and plants that can found in the local area. The bottom 40-50cm will be set into the ground in concrete, so that part only has notches cut into it. Above this is a band of carved rocks, as the development is called 'Rock Meadow'.

The carved animals include two rabbits, a shrew, two hazel dormice and their nest, a peacock butterfly, a comma butterfly and a dragonfly. 

The flowers are wild daffodils and a common spotted orchid.

Most of the carving on the sign was done using an angle grinder with a Holey Galahad disc, a curved metal disc covered in spikes. I also used traditional woodcarving hand tools a lot, to carve details and the lettering.

The Rock Meadow sign was a lot of fun to make and I hope that the future residents enjoy it too.