>Made these today and yesterday. Sorry for the bad photos I'll take better ones soon. Please Critque my turning and let me know what you think.
For Scale all are on top of a Quart container lol
Thanks,
Gil
#1. A spalted piece of maple found on the side of the road.
#2. A spalted piece of maple which I had lying under a tarp in the back yard.
#3. This is part of a 100+ year old maple found on the University of Connecticut's Campus. A limb split off and I snagged this piece from the landscape crew.
I like the finish and the woods you've chosen. Seems like you've gotten the sanding part down. (That took the longest for me to get right).
I'd like to suggest that you add more of a curve to the profiles. A curve with no flat spots looks very "natural" and "flows" (for lack of a better word). Take a piece of string and hold one end in each hand. Bring the ends closer together and the string sags. See the curve that forms? Thats the kind of profile you want.
The base on two of the bowls looks a bit big when compared to the opening. A real loose rule of thumb here is to make the base 1/3 the diameter of the widest part of the bowl. I recommend that you pick up a copy of "Turned Bowl Design" by Richard Raffan. It is a GREAT book and he does such a better job of explaining shapes and proportions than I do!
I really hope I haven't offended you by my comments. I have no desire to squelch your enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong! You're doing a great job. Your form just needs some polishing. Keep plugging away and turning more bowls. Remember: Practice makes perfect. OK?
>Well first of all, Dominic is an expert, but I wouldn't call him a Master (grin - Dom you know where that came from, right?). If nothing else, he is an expert at providing very good gentle critique of work, as he did here. Anyway, enough about Dom.
I would like to echo what Dominic said. When I was first given these very same gentle nudges in the design area, I hesitated, thinking "art is in the eye of the beholder", but truly, there are some general design considerations that the human eye finds more pleasing, regardless of who's eyes they are.
Here's another one - hold your hands out in front of you, palms facing up in a relaxed fashion. See how they curve upwards from the pinky towards the thumb? THAT is a great bowl shape. Something that would fit in your upturned palms - GREAT bowl shape.
You don't need much in the way of direction. Avoid sharp direction changes, avoid flat spots. Watch your form make people go "WOW!" I don't mean to intimate there is anything wrong with sharp direction changes, they have their place.
I also like curves better than straight sided bowls, and small feet as opposed to larger, but these are very nicely done, and if you wanted straight sided bowls with a larger, more practical foot, these are very successful !
I sometimes make mixing or chopping bowls and bowls for everyday kitchen use with large, fairly massive feet, because they're easier to use for mixing and such, and they're meant to be used and handled, not just sitting still and containing apples. That said, a bowl can be pretty darned stable with a fairly small foot if the proportions are balanced.
I'd guess #4 is Maple; the figure just doesn't look prominent enough for me to think its Ash.
#3 is beautifully curly, and looks to have gone out-of-round already. If this is branch wood, it may be reaction wood, which can move a LOT -- this bowl may be a really wild shape in a few months ! If this is turned and finished green, you may even get a rippled texture to the curl, which can really add a tactile dimension to a turning, and make it seem alive in a whole different way.
Keep up the fine work !
Safe Spinning,
Brad Vietje
Thetford, VT (about 200 miles up the CT River from UConn)
>Dominic has made some excellent observations and I would like to expand on the last statement he made.
I believe that practice makes more practice. My philosophy is that drive to perfection is an on-going, everlasting thing and that the masters of our craft have succeeded in getting much closer to perfection than I have. In light of this, my goal is to continue turning and perhaps, someday, I will get close enough to perfection that someone will consider what I create a "masterpiece".
I agree with the others about shapes. I also started with shapes like yours and then ventured deeper in to other forms after learning tool control. Be brave and move on to bigger and better forms. Remember that trial and error is a good teacher and that there is no self improvement without the effort of change.
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