The Juan scroll art statue

This has been finished for awhile, I just didn't remember to post it! This is The Juan, the character of our book.

The statue is made of 1/2" poplar, the base of 3/4" poplar.
The vibrant colors were not achieved using paint, because paint covers the wood's grain. Noe decided to give him a little more color than the drawing he did for the book. You can see the height in the one with the ruler.

Here's the before pictures:

And here's how he looks now ... 

But please keep in mind, I'm not a professional photographer. In fact, I had a hard time getting a good picture - it would either be fuzzy or have a glare.

But don't you think he's so cute?

 

 

 

We're considering doing a give-away with a Juan book promotion, but haven't figured that out yet. 
Noe does take woodart requests; contact us either by Google+ or email (see our NoeCindy page here).

Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

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Juan scroll art

One of Noe's many skills

You know I love to brag about my Noe...
We got our scroll saw machine working again, so he got to work on doing some pieces we've been wanting to do. We may make these available for purchase for those that are interested.

Of course, this is The Juan, our famous detective!

You can read about him in our book :-)
See the Amazon link on the sidebar →

This is just the very beginning of this piece.
It hasn't been sanded or stained or anything.
Each piece of wood has its own character.
The line in the middle is just a part of this particular wood, and we'll see how it looks as Noe does the color staining later. Just thought I'd post the process as he goes along.

  

Let us know what you think!

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Some other talents Noe has --

You know I just love to brag about him...

Here's some more of the woodart personalized name pieces Noe did in the past. His stuff is so nice because he adds color stain to the wood. That way you still see the grain and the character of the wood, AND you get a colorful piece. Of course, the artist in him makes them outstanding :-)

One of these days I'm either gonna get his scroll saw machine fixed again, 

or get him a new one... this talent is too good to sit idly by.

If you didn't see it yet, check this page out: More on scroll sawing

Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

cindy

More on scroll sawing

One design variation I am proud of developing on a scroll saw pattern has to do with portrait pieces. The scroll saw is capable of cutting so fine a line as to make it possible to take a photograph and reproduce it in wood.

The process is simple: scan your photo to make a printout. With your scroll saw, cut out dark areas of the photograph, such as shadows, dark hair, etc. By doing this you have successfully made the photo into a piece of wood. The type of wood used for this is usually ¼” plywood; the cut-out piece is placed over black felt and then framed. It is an interesting memento and conversation piece.

But it occurred to me: if instead of a thin piece of plywood, a piece of solid wood ½” thick were used, a two dimensional statue could be created. I tried it, and call them statuettes. In addition to following the same procedure used as described above, I further accentuate the piece by rounding over the edges and carving certain features, making them stand out more dramatically. I have done this with a picture of my son when he was two years old, and converted a pencil sketch of beautiful Cindy the same way. The result is a much more striking piece than when it is done the traditional way.  

One other variation I have made on the photo pattern is to take a silhouette, and instead of having it be cut from the ¼” plywood, I used ¾” solid wood. I wouldn’t just cut the outline of the face as is usually done with silhouettes. Most of the interior part of it would be cut out too, leaving the shape of the eyes and cheek bone, as well as hair line. Then I designed it to hang protruding out from the wall -- like a deer head, if you will. I know it may sound a bit gruesome when described this way, but the effect is actually quite striking! Take a look at this statuette and silhouette:

   

Noe

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write

I found an art form I love

My artistic side took on a new outlet after I was surfing the net one day about nine years ago. I came across something that absolutely intrigued me. It was a clock that was cut out of wood... I don’t mean just the housing, I’m talking about the gears and everything. It was designed so that the gears are exposed and are moved by a pendulum. It is something to see, and to me it looks like a moving piece of artwork. I had to know how someone could make that.

I found out that they used a scroll saw. Not knowing what that was, that was my next search. For those of you who don’t know, think of a sewing machine using very thin blades instead of a needle. Like a sewing machine, the saw moves the blade up and down. There is a surface -- a tabletop -- and you push the wood through the blade following a pattern. Because the blades are so small, the designs can be quite intricate.

After doing a bit of research, I bought a saw for about two hundred dollars. This was a nice saw, but the really good ones cost a few more hundred dollars, and I wasn’t ready to invest that much, not knowing any more than I did. My son, who was seventeen or so at the time, immediately took to scroll sawing with amazing aptitude. He could cut out some of the most intricate designs with speed and dexterity. Without exaggeration, he could rival anyone that had been working for years on the scroll saw. I can honestly say this (because so many scrollers put their work online and we also subscribed to scroll saw magazines); it’s not just fatherly pride talking.

When I saw how good he was and the potential for him to make some income from it, I purchased a much better saw. Sad to say, because of our lack of marketing know-how, he had to give up the idea of sawing for income. I guess also we just didn’t get his work in front of the right people, because he got a lot of praise on his work, but didn’t sell much.

It did permit me to make some interesting design patterns, which have taken on a whole different life in the wood than they had on the paper. In a future article, I will share some of the designs I have made.
Noe

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write