172 Sox Diamond Signed

I was informed that fans were allowed to get 2 autographs from Alejandro de Azo when he appeared at Chi-Town Collectibles - 322 N. Wolf Road (Mount Prospect, IL) June 21, 2012 so I decided to make another White Sox themed piece #172 Sox Diamond.

I also learned of a Bill Melton signing 06/23/2012 at the Bass Pro Shop in the Gurnee Mills shopping center, so I took both pieces to the event. Unfortunately, when I arrived at 11:50 am for a 12:00 PM signing, I was informed that I was too late, and the line had been cut off at the person in front of me. After I complained for a while, the crowd management team said I could hang around if I wanted, but there was no guarantee I'd get an autograph. This was a dual event with Shawn Michaels (HBK) and most of the fans were waiting for him. I was there for Bill Melton though. After waiting for about 45 minutes, Bill Melton came outside and was signing items for anyone who walked up to him, so I hussled over to him and got both pieces signed. I also let Bill use #171 as a support so he could sign a blueish colored Whitesox Jersey.

The picture below shows Alejandro de Aza in the act of signing #171. When I first handed the pieces to him, he said "That's Cool". It sounded more like "Ass Cool" or "at school" but certainly he seemed to like them. The day before, Alejandro was hit by a Cubs pitcher. I heard about it on the radio, but didn't see it so I asked, "Where did you get hit by a pitch yesterday?" He looked up, smiled, and said, "Right here" as he motioned to his right hip.



171 White Sox

I interrupted piece #170 and completed #171 because Tuesday, I learned about a Chicago White Sox, Alejandro de Aza, autograph signing in Mt. Prospect, IL 06/21/2012. I didn’t have a White Sox themed piece to get signed so I needed to make one quickly. Since I have my kids on Wednesdays so I knew I wouldn’t be able to work on it Wednesday at all. I had a single day to complete a piece if I was going to have one ready.

For this piece, I needed a simple logo that wasn’t very complicated and yet looked good. I wasn’t sure what ready blanks I had so I chose two different potential designs while I was at work Fortunately, I had a nice 11.5” Diameter Basswood plaque that was perfect for the round White Sox logo. The blank has some imperfections, but I knew I could execute the design, get it signed, and then do some post autograph touch up.

I only used the shading tip and the mini flow tip for the entire piece.

As you can see, I started by burning around the edges of the letters and the Sox Logo. I left the Timestamps visible so you can see approximately how long it took between steps.

I signed it on the inside rim since I didn't want it to be confused with the player autographs.

I definitely was not quite as careful or as precise with this piece as I normally would be, but time was of the essence so I went as fast as possible.

170 Guiding Light Work in Progress

For this post, I thought it would be educational to take you though the process as I'm creating my latest piece. The first picture shows the blank moments before I started woodburning. The picture was taken while the woodburner was heating up, and it shows the two pieces of Poplar glued together to form the rather large 22.5" wide by 24 " tall blank. It already has the keyholes for hanging on the back, and the design is already drawn on the blank though you can't see it very well until the third picture.

This piece #170 is called Guiding Light, though I had thought about "Christian Light" and "North Head Lighthouse" when I was conceiving the piece. Whenever I burn a piece, I typically burn the darkest parts first, then the lightest parts, and then work my way ever lighter and darker until I meet somewhere in the middle like building a bridge. This is not 100% as there are times I just feel like I need to work on a certain area before another area. In this case, the Jesus figure is to be hanging on a cross in front of the blackest section I can make. I therefore wanted to make sure the Jesus part was simply outlined so I could burn the black part and know it was properly spaced.



I next did a general outline of the cross, then I started to burn the blackest section. As you can see, I went completely around the cross first. This required rotating the piece several times so that the lighter part was always to the left of where I was burning.

The fourth picture shows the completed black section. You should know that I had to stop a couple of times to clean off the black buildup on the woodburning tip, and also to rest because the woodburner gets VERY hot when burning the blackest section.

I next worked on the roof of the keeper's house, along with the windows. I then started on the lighthouse, and was doing some of the darkest and lightest sections of the tower. The right side of the tower will be dark, but I started it off lightly because I found that darkening it in waves yields a more uniform look than trying to hit the desired color right off. I was really working mostly on the left side of the tower, but I find it helps me to balance it out by shading a bit on both ends when shading the lightest sections. If I only do the lightest sections, it makes it hard to see the ultimate balance

Sometimes I wait to sign a piece until its done, but in this case, I decided to sign it while I had the mini-flow tip hot in the burner since I might not have a need for that tip again at all. I imagine the rest will be accomplished with the shading tip and the knife edge tip.

Even at this stage, I'm not 100% certain about the entire piece. Today I was thinking about the clouds and the sky and was debating whether to burn the clouds and leave the sky unburned, or burn the sky and leave some of the clouds unburned, and others clouds lightly burned. I'm leaning toward burning the sky not the clouds, but I'm not sure. What I will likely do next is work on the details of the tower at the top to see how balanced it looks. I'll likely start out with the knife edge tip on a dark hot setting and burn the guard rail. Then I'll work on the glass section and that will likely lead me to a decision on the clouds and the sky.

158 Carolina Luiz

This is a piece I made for my girlfriend, Carolina Luiz. Her birthday is 08/15 so I chose to use the 158 number for her long awaited piece since it is just a jumble of her Birthday.

While it was in the process of making the piece, she made the comment that a part of her hair was sticking up and made her look like her head was an apple. In order to alter it so that she'd be happy, I made some extra patterns on the pillow on which her head is resting. I also made her an apple piece and told her she was the "Apple of my Eye".

166 Kenosha Lighthouse

This is a piece made with the intention of selling it. Eventually, it will be displayed in an Art Gallery called Forever Grateful in Kenosha, WI.

Initially, I drove to Kenosha in order to set my work up for sale in that gallery. The problem was that the gallery wanted people to be able to buy an item and walk out with it, but all  my pieces to date had been commissioned pieces and were unavailable for sale.

The gallery owners suggested I create pieces to sell, and recommended Lighthouses, Kenosha Streetcars, Packer's, Bulls, Brewers, Cubs, and Fantasy pieces such as Dragons and Fairies. I don't have a plan to do any fantasy pieces, but I'm working on several other pieces to display.

This piece is burned on Poplar, and uses colored pencils for the colored parts. I usually prefer to have a piece that is only wood burned, but the Kenosha Lighthouse is a bright red and so ultimately I decided it wouldn't be the Kenosha Lighthouse unless it was red. After I colored the lighthouse red, I had to add color to the rest otherwise the lighthouse would be too dominant.