My attempt to turn something (nearly) rotten into something cool ... finished !

[yamatetsu]

I found two pieces of wood and decided to make something out of them. They were nearly rotten, I let them dry for a few days and then cleaned them up with steel wool and sanded them down a bit. After that, I stained them. The difference before/after is just amazing.

This is what the bottom of one piece looked like pre-stain :



This is the top of the same piece stained :





Finally, this is a part of the second piece which I will put into the top of the first piece. The left side is stained, the right is not.



I will have to drill a hole into the top of the first piece and glue the second piece into it. But first, the last coat of stain will take 48 hours to dry.

So hopefully on Sunday I will be able to present you something really cool (at least IMHO  ).

Stay tuned !

[Slippyblade]

Got me curious, looking forward to Sunday!

[yamatetsu]

Since I hate waiting and generally am very impatient, I checked on the last coat of stain. Lo and behold, it was dry ! So I took a spade bit, drilled a hole into the 'floor board' and wrestled the top piece of wood into it. It fit so good that I didn't need to glue it.

This is the result :

[yamatetsu]

More pics.

[yamatetsu]

Even more pics.









I really like how this turned out. Not too shabby for some pieces of wood that I found rotting in the woods 

[ark_ader]

I appreciate the hard work you have done here, but if you had made a sculpture out of dead wood, I could see the effort.

[Howard_Casto]

There was an artist that used to mount driftwood like this and sell them at places like seaworld.  He also sculpted marine life (typically sharks, rays and dolphins) and mounted them to the wood to give the illusion of swimming in mid-air. 

[Le Chuck]

I  don't line the mounting point, the branch is a little thick and to me grounds the piece. I would like to have seen that piece in the same position but affixed to the base by some very thin steel rods to give it some lift.

Great job on the surface treatment!  Love that it's found pieces.

[yamatetsu]

if you had made a sculpture out of dead wood, I could see the effort.

Trust me, if I had attempted to make a sculpture out of dead wood, you wouldn't want to see it 

This was not an effort to create some great piece of art, I just found this piece of wood that to me looks like some kind of alien bird and thought that it looked way too good to let it rot. I planned to give it a few coats of clear lacquer and mount it somehow, then someone suggested that I stain it and that's what I did. I have never used stain before, luckily it turned out so much better than the clear coat.
To me, the result is something well worth a few hours of work. Also, it was fun to do it.

I  don't line the mounting point, the branch is a little thick and to me grounds the piece. I would like to have seen that piece in the same position but affixed to the base by some very thin steel rods to give it some lift.

I see your point, but that branch was literally the only piece I could find that would serve as a base without having to do a lot of work on it. I don't have the tools to cut a big piece like that horizontally in half to make it thinner, I would have to use a palm sander to do that. That would have been way more effort than I was willing to spend.
There also was the concern that a thinner base might be unstable, perhaps allowing the whole thing to topple over.

This shows me (again) that posting a finished project is a not so hot idea, since the people here always seem to have good suggestions for improvement. Perhaps I'll learn my lesson some day 

[DaOld Man]

Good job.
Reminds me of that movie "The Thing".

[Vigo]

Good work! 

This is very reminiscent of Chinese root carving, which is a very amazing art form, in my opinion. The basic point of root carving is to take the natural warped designs of roots and working with that shape to make something new. Some are more carved and some are more natural, but I think you hit the nail on the head with what the concept is all about.

Just some samples. I'll skip posting the giant intricate carvings that are worth multi millions, but they get pretty darn elaborate and valuable.








 

[yamatetsu]

Now THAT is seriously cool ! And just like that there goes my notion of having done something unique 

Just joking. I'm beginnig to envy those people who both have the artistic vision and the skills to turn something out of their mind into reality. It's amazing how many cool art forms there are if you just start looking.

[Vigo]

I'm beginnig to envy those people who both have the artistic vision and the skills to turn something out of their mind into reality. It's amazing how many cool art forms there are if you just start looking.

I think you fall into that category. You were able to pick up a stick and see some sort of mythical creature that is a cross between Gonzo and a Flamingo and then you changed it around so that others see the same thing you do. The only difference between you and many artists is simply amount of practice. Don't be afraid to keep going next time you see a cool stick on the ground. 

[dkersten]

It wouldn't take much to carve a little detail into the stem that connects the two pieces to make it look like a leg from a bird or dinosaur or something fantastical..

[yamatetsu]

I think you fall into that category. You were able to pick up a stick and see some sort of mythical creature that is a cross between Gonzo and a Flamingo and then you changed it around so that others see the same thing you do.

That's kinda my point. Sometimes I see things like that and modify them a bit, but that's mostly changing something that's already there. I'm good at improvising, I look at problems and ask myself how I can solve them with the materials / tools at hand. That's where I get creative. Give me a piece of paper and say 'Paint anything you like' and I would have no idea what to paint.
Give me the task of doing artwork that requires a certain theme for a cab and I search the net for photos, modify and stencil the heck out of them 

So, to sum it up :

Artistic vision : Sometimes, occurs randomly

Creativity : Mostly task oriented

Skills : Mostly nonexistent

It wouldn't take much to carve a little detail into the stem that connects the two pieces to make it look like a leg from a bird or dinosaur or something fantastical..

It would take even less to mess it up  I don't have the skills or the tools to do that and I would be really afraid of marring a unique piece.

[Loopey1]

Leave it as is. It looks perfect to me. Believe it or not I really like what you have done. 

I am no art critic but I do see something that catches my eye in that.

[yamatetsu]

Leave it as is. It looks perfect to me.

  

I like the way it turned out, I won't change anything.

I'm heeding Vigo's advice, I'm doing a second piece that will have a thinner base and will be mounted on steel rods. Right now I'm waiting for the stain to dry. I'll post some pics if it turns out ok.