Those of you who check in on this page periodically will have noticed
that work on bowls is going a bit slowly.
This is where our lifestyle most directly affects my carving. Spring and 
summer are our 'outside projects' time of year and we have been 
spending very little time in shop and studio. This bowl is a commission 
by a custom home builder who likes to give the home owners a gift of 
fine art to help celebrate completion of their new or remodeled home. 
Since their home is in the arts and craft style I designed this bowl to 
complement that style.

Here are the preliminary sketches...

The bowl is being carved from a green oak half-log and was roughed out 
with a small hatchet and large gouges. 

Here you can se the general shape with the 
outside roughly shaped and four kind of 
blocky appendages for the legs.

The bowl is beginning to look more bowl-like
but there is a lot of wood yet to be removed to 
get it down to a thickness of 3/16".

Though the bowl is still quite thick the 
bottom and feet are taking shape. I ground
the edges off a couple of rasps to create  
tools for shaping and cleaning up those 
areas where the feet meet the bowl. (9/18/04)

You can see here that the bowl is pretty much 
completed. Another week or two to finish it
(Tried-and-True Varnish Oil then bee's wax
and carnauba wax) and it will be really done.