Not Sure What These Are Called

[Brian Weaver]

Finished this yesterday. Not sure what they are called but it's Box Elder Burl and Walnut. 11" tall and has a small captured ring. It's also my first hollow form. Please critique!

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[Bill Bolen]

Don't know what "they" call it but I call it mighty pretty. very cool...Bill...

[Bernie Weishapl]

Not sure what it is called either but it is a beauty for sure. Well done.

[Richard Madison]

Also would call it Very Nice, Brian. On the next one consider making both the finial and pedestal a little shorter and less elaborate in order to emphasize the hf a bit more. Finish on the hf appears to be quite good.

[Bill Blasic]

Brian,
If you made the bottom of the ball to match the top of the ball I believe that it would be more pleasing to the eye, keep the curve all the way through instead of flattening out at the bottom and having a bigger platform on the pedestal. Still very nicely turned.
Bill

[Skip Spaulding]

Looks good, seems to me that the larger base and bottom finial and the rounding top and more delicate top finial give this a proportion that works. I am no expert but I like it!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Brian - first off I want to commend you on a wonderful first hollow form - very well done! These types of hollow forms always grab attention and are a lot of fun to turn. As far as a name for the style - I really don't know if there is one - I've always called mine 'elevated hollow forms' because of the pedestal.

Critiques are hard to do when a turner is just starting out and when you only have the one photo to work with. I will however offer a couple of suggestions for design consideration on your next one.

Everyone has a different taste when it comes to form. Some want tall/thin - others short and squat. The hollow form portion of your piece - IMO - falls into the bag-of-sand type of an organic shape and in a way competes with the pedestal/finial style. If your form had been flipped 180* vertically - I believe the piece would be more pleasing to the eye and would flow better.

As an example:
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On the pedestal and finial - you have some very nice and clean detail work - especially for walnut! My suggestion would be to pick a few details that you like and position them somewhere close to the 2/3 mark of the pedestal and finial. You want some detail but not so many that they compete for attention with each other.

As mentioned - this is very nice work and I offer the above suggestions as just ideas to think about. If they fit in with what you want to turn - great. If not - please disregard.

Looking forward to seeing your next turning!

[Brian Weaver]

Thanks everyone for your comments and critiques! Steve, I can't believe how just flipping the ball would have made such a difference! It was something I had never considered, I had a plan in mind and never really budged from it. This will teach me to consider things a bit more. 2 things I will now admit to is the ball did start out to be a bit more rounded on the bottom however as I said before this was my first hollow form and ......well......I got it a bit too thin right on the bottom. :D That's why it has a bit larger base to sit on. The other thing is the pedestal was going to be about 1 1/2" shorter but an internal crack showed up in just the wrong spot so I had to change things up a bit. I can see also that the amount of detail could be distracting from the hollow form my thought process was straight round wood is boring so do lots of stuff on it! This is something I will also work on in the future. Thanks again for the critique's I believe they will only make me better at something I truly love to do.