Dragon Head
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>I wasn’t quite sure where to put this – or even if I should. I certainly used some hand tools (plane, scrapers and gouge) but the best description of this would be minimalist, I think. At least that’s what I was trying for. There’s a long story behind this piece that I hope you won’t mind me sharing.
Several years ago my wife and I were at a local lumberyard that sells good hardwood. I forget what I was getting but when we got to the counter to check out there was a guy ahead of us with a really nice long, wide cherry board. Well, except for a really nasty piece on the end of the board. He told the young (obviously new) guy behind the counter that he wanted the board but he didn’t want the piece with the flaws in it. So the guy goes and cuts about 18 inches off the end of a board over 12 wide, calculates the board feet, charges the guy who promptly left. Before he could get to us the manager of the place came in, saw the piece of cherry that had been cut off and asked what was up. The guy told him and promptly got chewed out. Among the kindly explanations were phrases like “Against policy”, “What were you thinking” and “No one will ever buy this miserable chunk of wood.”
My wife had been watching all this – but she was also eyeing the piece of wood. (It's sort of a bad sign when she starts eyeing a piece of wood.) She saw all the flaws as attractive and I think she felt sorry for the guy getting chewed out. She asked me if I would buy it. I was a bit dubious – but it wasn’t that much so we bought it. (I told the guy to be sure and tell the manager that he sold that miserable chunk of wood.) My wife wanted me to make a little stool for her to sit on when she did her gardening – but somehow that just didn’t fit the wood. Any way I stored it with some other wood and kept forgetting it. I’d see it now and again and try to figure out what to do with it and nothing came to mind.
A couple of years ago we were in Woodcraft and my wife came running over to me saying she had found a dragon head. Well, being in Woodcraft that seemed moderately impossible but I went to look. I’ll be darned if she hadn’t found a large piece of manzanita root that looked just like a dragon head. Of course she wanted it – and it wasn’t that much, so we took it home with us. Well, it sort of went into storage while I tried to figure out what to do with it. Over the next year I tripped over the cherry board and the dragon head – trying to figure out just what I’d do with them. Finally I was struck by the idea of putting the two together. I tried the better side of the board and played around with arranging the two – but nothing clicked. Then I turned the board over to the really flawed side and things just clicked. The big defect on one corner of the board looked like flames (or would with a little red dye to bring it out) and knot above it looked like an exploding star.
I slowly started collecting the things I thought I’d need, some red dye – for the tongue and flames, black dye to set off the tongue and a red (flattened) marble for the eye. I used some white latex house paint to add snow highlights the “rocks” under the chin of the dragon. I planed the cherry board badly, leaving plane tracks in it then scraped it with a card scraper. I didn’t want the board to be slick, I wanted a little texture. I also highlighted some of the cracks and tear out on the cherry with black dye to accent them. My wife wanted some scallops out of the edges – so I gouged out a few scallops. I finished the board with a couple of coats of wipe on poly. I make this sound like I did it in a few days - but I did this a little at a time up until this last week when I finally had everything and decided to get it done.
My whole intent with this piece was to do as little as possible and let the natural forms do all the work. I hope I succeeded – although the only thing that counts is that my wife adores it.
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