Textured Birch Bowl

[Eric Holmquist]

Birch Bowl, Textured and Airbrushed. Around 8" (20 cm) across. Finished with waterborne lacquer.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8415/8710543811_af05fb3d63_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8710543811/)
Textured Birch 01a (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8710543811/) by Eric Holmquist (http://www.flickr.com/people/79751797@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8267/8710543869_97fb5c0ec5_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8710543869/)
Textured Birch 01b (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8710543869/) by Eric Holmquist (http://www.flickr.com/people/79751797@N04/), on Flickr

[bob svoboda]

Can' find anything to criticize--Very Nice, Eric

[Jim Burr]

Ok Eric...how tall, what dye for the airbrush, what airbrush, how was the texture done, dye or burn on the outside...other than those missing things, I really like it!!

[Harry Robinette]

Oh Yeah now that is beautiful with out a doubt,that is one really pretty piece.

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks all,

It is about 2 1/2" (6 cm) tall

All of the colors are Golden Acrylics.

The inside is a yellow at the bottom to red at the rim fade using transparent acrylic airbrush colors so you can see the underlying wood patterns.

In retrospect, I think I should have applied a hint of shading grey at the rim to give it more visual impact.

The outside is Golden Carbon Black opaque acrylic thinned with Transparent Extender.

I almost always try to ensure that some major portion of the woodturning is either natural wood, or use transparent acrylics / dyes. I want it to be clear that the piece really is wood, even if it has been vividly colored.

The texturing is done with a rotary tool, I use an Optima micromotor, but a Dremel would work too. I used a cheap diamond cutoff wheel from Harbor Freight in the tool to do the texturing, just lightly scoring the surface in intersecting arcs. I used a wire brush lightly to remove dust from the scoring then airbrushed the carbon black over it.

I had been tempted to use something like India ink but the piece was so thin that I was afraid it would weep to the inside, I also rejected Black Gesso which I have used in the past as I felt it would reduce the effect of the texturing. That left me with very light coats of thinned Carbon Black which did not reduce the texturing.

Most textured pieces I see tend to have a flat or no finish, but I did not want to risk the black being scratched so I tried an experiment and sprayed waterborne lacquer over it in the hope that the reflection patterns would add visual interest. I think the experiment worked reasonably well as when you hold it and move it around light reflects on the facets in a shifting pattern.

Airbrush was an Iwata HP-CS with the stock 0.35 mm needle replaced with a 0.50 mm needle to allow me to more easily airbrush thicker paints or larger particle mica tints.

Spray-gun is an Asturo conversion HVLP

Finish is Target Coatings EM6000 Clear Gloss

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

Eric, I like your texturing effect on this piece & use of color, Though a shot of the bottom of the bowl would have been nice.
Good choice going with the Golden acrylics. I use a lot of them & find them to be excellent products.

[Thom Sturgill]

Very well done, sir. I would probably left the bottom natural as a 'surprise and to show the natural color off, but that is a quibble. I particularly like the texturing and its coloring/finish.

[Eric Holmquist]

Eric, I like your texturing effect on this piece & use of color, Though a shot of the bottom of the bowl would have been nice.
Good choice going with the Golden acrylics. I use a lot of them & find them to be excellent products.


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7434/8716222012_7b994eec30_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8716222012/)
Textured Birch 01c (http://www.flickr.com/photos/79751797@N04/8716222012/) by Eric Holmquist (http://www.flickr.com/people/79751797@N04/), on Flickr

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

Nice blending

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beautiful bowl Eric. Love the color inside.

[Roger Chandler]

That is a pretty slick embellishment Eric............this one has some pizzazzz! Nice work!

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Eric,
This bowl has been here a couple days and I began trying to comment on it and got distracted by my real life each time. Here we go again. This is a great example how color and texture can add so much visual interest to a bowl. You mentioned your choice of Golden Airbrush acrylics. Not knowing how much difference there could be between paint brands or airbrushes for that matter, I bought some Createx paints and an inexpensive Paashe airbrush. After experimenting a while I decided I hated everything about acrylic paints and the airbrush. A couple years ago I watched a presentation on color done by David Nittmann. He sells a fairly expensive line of paint as well as the Grex brand air brushes. The difference is unbelievable. I also tried Golden paints and find them to be very high quality with very fine pigments. It was generous of you to write down your process. I really like your bowl.
faust

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks again,

I've seen a demo by David Nittmann at Totally Turning last year, and he is quite gifted. While I agree with David that you can create pretty much any color you want by blending colors, I like to start with a very nice core 6 colors. For that reason, I use the green and orange that he sells. Those are really nice shades that I can adjust slightly rather than have to maintain recipes to make the colors I want. I've actually had excellent results from some Createx colors, but not the ones most people know. I use their automotive Candy Colors occasionally over a metal flake base to create some interesting effects. Generally however I really like Golden, I find them to be the easiest to use.

[Josh Bowman]

Eric, very nice. Love the colors and contrasts.

[Baxter Smith]

Very nicely done Eric. Lots to look at on this one!