Rob Gorrell, Tramp Art, Folk Art and other general oddities.

I have moved.

2011-03-04T07:39:00.006-05:00

Hi. Thanks for taking a look at my blog. I have moved all of my blog and website information to my new blog at http://www.robgorrell.com/.

When you've made a Dork Fish, Punk Fish must follow.

2011-02-21T14:42:00.002-05:00

Usually when I get on a kick to make something I will cut out parts for a few of the item. Part of the reason I do this is my more production oriented past with rustic furniture, and partly because I figure at some point I will screw up part of the job and have to start over. Every now and then things go well and I end up with sort of a series of variations on a theme. In this case it is a fish series I guess.

When I was making Dork Fish I kept thinking of this box of old nails used to fasten wooden plaster lath that I had been hoarding for years. The idea of using the nails to make wild hair on something kept rolling around in my head. Then, while looking through some old guide books for England I saw photos from the punk period and, as they say over the pond, "Bob's your uncle", Punk Fish.

So after some more folk art style carving, paint distressing, and so on, here is Punk Fish:

I have to admit that we did not see anything quite like this in London, but it's a big city, we could have missed it. Oh, and if you are planning a trip to the UK, check the Iceland Volcano situation....

Here is a close up of our man Punk Fish:

I should have this for sale in my Etsy store shortly.

May I present, Dork Fish.

2011-02-21T14:08:00.002-05:00

I finally finished the Dork Fish and took some decent photos. In a previous post I described some of the construction of this project.
It is made from all salvaged and reused items. The fish is carved from salvaged poplar, the fins are parts of tin cans and the bobbers and lures are found. The background is made from re-worked beer caps,
which I hate to admit, we made available ourselves.

Is calling a fish a dork politically incorrect? He doesn't seem to mind. He has his pocket protector, pencils, glasses and is ready to go to....school... (sorry).

Here you can see some detail of how I put the project together. The total dimensions are about 17 x 31 inches.

I should have this up on my Etsy Store soon. I am in the process of redoing my store so it may be a little messy at the moment.

A whittling treasure is discovered.

2011-01-23T14:26:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago my in-laws brought a plastic box of wood carvings over to the house and wanted to know if we could design and make a display for the pieces. Here is what was in the box!

I have seen a variety of folk art whittling in museums and books, but this is the first time I have really gotten my hands on a group like this. They were made by Douglas Uhl. He worked a sand and gravel "digger" dredge on the Ohio River in the late 1930's. It seems that Douglas made these tools while on the river. Douglas was also a woodworker and was my wife's grandfather.

A few of the tools have inlays which were salvaged from a guitar that he found floating in the river. I am assuming that some of the tools are made from wood pulled out of the river also, but do not know that for sure.

There are many carving books out there that give some information on this type of whittling. One of my favorites is Whittling and Woodcarving, by E.J. Tangerman. I think I like it as much for the 1930's illustrations as for the instructions.

I am looking forward to building a nice folk art display to house this family treasure.

Tramp art coin bank finished

2011-01-23T13:59:00.000-05:00

Here is the new tramp art coin box finished. I put a distressed red finish on the bank. The soft pine was a breeze to carve as long as I was careful not to cut to deep and split the wood.

I sent this one off to MountainMade.com for their retail shop. If you are interested in this bank please contact MountainMade.com.

Making a Tramp Art coin bank from scrap wood.

2011-01-05T08:09:00.000-05:00

My brother and his wife are building a log home and I have been helping here and there with rustic trim work and window frames. It turns out that the scraps from the trim work are perfect for tramp art carving.

The pine that was sawn for the house is very clear and soft. It carves with almost no effort. This has come as a great relief since the walnut that I have been trying to hand carve was much harder to work with. This pine still splits out if you cut too aggressively, but does better than the walnut and more sappy pine that I have in the shop.

This little project is a coin bank. It is modeled after an antique in Tramp Art, Another Notch by Clifford A. Wallach. I thought it was a nice functional piece of folk art and wanted to make my version of the design.

The box is about a 4" cube of 1/4" pine. I cut out all the pieces before I started cutting the notches. This allows me to go kind of Zen with the notching.

Oops. This happens sometimes when I pre-cut the pieces. The notches went a little deeper than I expected in this softer wood. So I had to re-cut some of the upper layer sections.

Here is where I left off before painting. It took me about three hours to get to this point. I am happy with the design overall, though in hindsight I wish I had dome something besides the little wheels in the middle. But I think it will all work together when I get the finish applied. The plan is to give it a distressed two color finish.

The Dork Fish is almost finished.

2010-10-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

After many delays the Dork Fish sign is almost complete. I have spent a few evenings tinkering with the painted finish and think I am getting close to being satisfied with it. Using acrylic paints, a heat gun, the kitchen freezer, and various scrapers, I have built up layers of distressed color that I was hoping would sort of look like plaid pants on a fish........not quite there yet.

The Dork Fish - continued

2010-09-27T14:38:00.003-04:00

I cannot draw. That is a sad fact, but I can't. There is a serious disconnect between brain and pencil going on when I try. So I pulled out Folk Art Weather Vanes for a fish pattern and adapted it to my dork fish.

From here I made a rustic wood frame and background from some poplar that was given to me. I also cut out the fish shape and roughly carved the blank into a fish body of sorts. The fins will be added later.

The new thing I tried for this was to flatten beer caps with a hammer and burn the finish off the caps. They came out in various stages of burned. Next I nailed the caps to the background to try to simulate water and waves. It looks pretty cool to me at this point. I will have to decide later on if I want to add any paint.

So here is where the project is right now:

Glorify in your personal geekness.

2010-09-23T18:12:00.008-04:00

I have a sign over my workshop that I bought at the first big city trade show that I exhibited in, about 12 or 13 years ago. It was made by a fellow in Kentucky back before all the Chinese knockoffs of these signs started pouring in. I have lost his name unfortunately. It always makes me smile.

OK, a seemingly unrelated thing is that I think Bill Engvall is the funniest thing walking. A while back he did a story about a "Dork Fish" which slayed me.

Finally. We had been saving beer caps in an old crock for quite a while and it was full. A recent conversation with some artist friends (Hi Jim and Mary) gave me a idea of using mashed beer caps to simulate water.

I cannot draw. That is a sad fact, but I can't. There is a serious disconnect between brain and pencil going on when I try. So I pulled out Folk Art Weather Vanes for a fish pattern and adapted it to my dork fish.

From here I made a rustic wood frame and background from some poplar that was given to me. I also cut out the fish shape and roughly carved the blank into a fish body of sorts. The fins will be added later.

The new thing I tried for this was to flatten beer caps with a hammer and burn the finish off the caps. They came out in various stages of burned. Next I nailed the caps to the background to try to simulate water and waves. It looks pretty cool to me at this point. I will have to decide later on if I want to add any paint.

So here is where the project is right now:

Finished Tramp Art Jewelry Display

2010-08-19T22:40:00.006-04:00

I finally finished a group of the Jewelry displays I talked about in my last post. I started out making a few of them in dark colors, but as things went along I found that I did not like them. Soooooo, more paint. Because as Dolly Parton said, "A good coat of paint will make any old barn look good". Gotta love Dolly.

I ended up using a heat gun to blister the dickens out of the paint layers. The final finish nearly fills up some of the tramp art carving, which I think really works for these boxes.

Once again the final product is different from the original idea a little bit. But it works for me, this time. So these will go on my website and Etsy instead of going into the wood stove with previous disasters. Like I always say,"What won't sell will burn".

A New Tramp Art Collaboration.

2010-08-09T20:46:00.005-04:00

Shelley has been working hard to develop here skills as a jewelry artist lately and has been making some great silver jewelry. One of her latest designs has her really excited and she came to me with an idea to make a tramp art display stand to present the necklace.

I think the necklace is really great and we put our heads together for the design. Shelley came up with a rough sketch of what she imagined and I started working from there.

Here is the sketch.

I had purchased a small pile of reject wood boxes recently and it turns out that they are perfect for this project. I took the doors off of the boxes and laid them aside for another upcoming project. I try hard not to waste any more material than I have to.

From here I added a base and a tramp art framed border on the fronts of the boxes. I am working on five of these at the moment. We will be adding a variety of crests to the top of the boxes before painting and finishing.

Inside of the box I added a wire to display a few beads and will be adding a hanger under the top to hang the necklace Shelley made.

So here is where the boxes stand at the moment:

One of my major goals as an artists/craftsman (whatever) is to reduce the amount of electricity that goes into making my work. Some projects involve more hand tools than others. This particular series makes a lot of use of a rotary carving tool as opposed to hand cut notches. But I did get to use one of my antique hand planes to ease the edges of the bases.

I hope to have an update in a week with more images and thoughts.

An update on the rustic garden.

2010-07-05T20:12:00.005-04:00

Well it is hotter than .....well it's damn hot. I don't know if the little rustic garden is going to survive the heat wave so I thought I would post a couple photos of how it is working out at the moment.

We have been trying to change our yard from something you just mow and weed into a more productive food source. Back in the spring I build a group of willow supports for veggies and reused some containers and a rusted wheel barrow for lettuce and herbs. We have been eating a lot of lettuce so far. The tomatoes are coming on along with summer squash and cucumbers. The green beans didn't make it. Time will tell on the winter squash.

The main problem now is getting enough water to the plants. Everything is baking on the driveway in this heat and I have been watering some stuff twice a day.

The willow structure is working pretty good. The squash is really climbing. I was inspired to try to build some sort of overhead arbor by the extensive gardens at Chenonceau in France. The gardens there are HUGE. They made extensive use of rustic trellises and arbors. I don't think my plants will ever do as well as theirs.

Big changes on Rob's websites.

2010-06-29T08:28:00.002-04:00

Hi. I have been wanting to update my domain name and website for a long time now and finally did it. After years of using twigchair.com even though I don't really feature that many chairs anymore, I switched to www.robgorrell.com. I think the new website is simpler and easier to navigate.

This morning I noticed that the slide shows are not linked right so I will have to fix that soon. In the future I plan to add new items to the store and add some feature pages. I still need to rebuild the links page also.

If you go to www.twigchair.com you will be redirected to the new site by clicking on the images.

Trying to add a slideshow.

2010-06-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

It's time for a garden party, rustic style.

2010-06-01T19:12:00.006-04:00

The other night we had some of our friends over for a casual dinner in the garden. Shelley set a nice table under the dogwood tree and we put the jazz channel on the radio and we were set.

It seems like we have to have company to get ourselves to quit working on the garden and just enjoy it. Does that happen to you? you can't really tell from the photos but we have been working for the past few seasons to convert more of our property into food producing space. We have replaced box woods with blueberries and a pathway with a variety of raspberries and blackberries. I guess we are becoming part of the urban farming movement on a very small scale.

We found that there was not enough light in the back yard for vegetables and moved them onto the driveway, which gave me another rustic project to build. I made these tripods from local willow.

I guess I really don't have a point to make, just wanted to show off my herbs before they blister in the heat and croak on me.

A few new rustic garden projects

2010-05-24T21:13:00.005-04:00

The rain has finally stopped and we are deep into our garden and yard projects. I thought I would post these to show why I haven't been posting much tramp art lately.

I have been trying to grow vegetables for a few seasons in our back yard. Most of it turns out to be too shady for many veggies. But we have found that we can grow strawberries and blueberries really well.
This year we added some more berries and I needed to build a new bird screen over the plot. This is what we came up with. The previous cover was made from willow twigs which kept snagging the bird screening when we tried to open the side to pick berries. This rustic cage is made in such a way that we can roll up the sides to pick fresh blueberries and still have a nice open feel to the area.

We decided to move the vegetables to the driveway since it gets full sun most of the time. Of course this meant that everything had to go into containers. This gave us a great opportunity to have some fun with rustic and salvaged materials for our garden. Time will tell how well this will work. In the coming days I will be building a rustic trellis over our tomatoes and squash that will be inspired by the gardens of Chenonceau France.

And finally, Shelley reworked the rustic tin and wood Celtic cross that I made last summer. She whitewashed the old tin and created a new shrine area in a shady corner of the yard.

Tramp Art Church Box Do Over.

2010-05-17T18:06:00.009-04:00

A while back I made a series of three tramp art cupboards and boxes that were inspired by French cathedrals. I was happy with two of them and they sold pretty fast. The third one however never really worked for me. I kicked it around for a while and finally decided to give it a make-over. Here is what I started with.

To be honest I don't like the proportions, the colors, and the fact that it looks top heavy. Shelly suggested that I add a wider base to the whole thing to balance it out better.

I made a wood base with one large drawer that I think helped quite a bit.
I added a false front to the drawer to be more pleasing with the small upper section drawers. The colors are off on this photo as the paint is really more of a medium brown.

From there I added some rectangular accents to the steeples with hand notched edges. Speaking of edges....

Up to this point I have been carving the majority of my notches with a grinder jig that I found on the internet. However, I find that the hand cut notches look nicer and are more fun to do. So from now on all my regular notches will be hand cut. I may still use a dremel tool here and there, but not much.

The final steps for this make-over were to paint the rest of the cupboard brown and add a multi-step antiqued finish that highlighted the notches and shadows nicely.

Here is the finished cupboard. It measures 32 inches tall, 14.5 inches wide and 6" deep.

Who would have thought a volcano would do this?

2010-04-21T04:48:00.002-04:00

Hi. We came to London for rest, inspiration and fun. Just after we landed authorities shut down airspace and here we are on an extended stay in England. So when this all blows through I will be back in the shop working.

Rob

Starting a new twig chair.

2010-03-23T19:43:00.004-04:00

I have been wanting to build a new rustic chair for a while now and have finally moved some wood into the shop to begin the project. This pine was gathered along the interstate where a hillside had been cleared and a lot of wood was left to rot. Since this wood has been down a while I will have to treat it for critters at some point. More on that later.The new chair will be in the same theme as the one above that I made a couple years ago. I have a few oars, but the back will be something other than a snowshoe. I'm not exactly sure what yet. The first step was to get the wood into the shop.

In the past I would throw the pile on the floor and trip over it for a while until I got around to making something. In a fit of organization I decided to trim all the bad spots out and organize the pile for a change. So now I am here:

My next step will be to start fiddling around with the different twigs to get an idea of how the chair might look in different arrangements.

With spring coming on and all the yard work to be done, this chair may take a while to complete. I hope to give regular updates.

Coming up: Bungee cord joinery.

If you are interested in making your own chairs I highly recommend that you read Dan Mack's books on rustic furniture.

Bucket of old brushes.

2010-03-07T12:11:00.006-05:00

When I was a teenager at the end of the 70's I started jurying into craft shows with pine furniture. At the time I would see artists with containers of really beat up brushes on their work tables. I wondered where they got them in such shape.

Over the years I continued to see these containers in magazine articles about artists. In fact it seemed to be some sort of obligatory item to have. So where did they get them...?

Now, more than 2o years later I have noticed something in our shop. This bucket holds some of our favorite brushes that we have been using for years.

So that is how it happens I guess.

I feel old.

Do you have a favorite bucket of brushes? Send me a picture and maybe I can post a collection.

A place to put your pencils.

2010-03-01T19:12:00.006-05:00

So who still uses pencils anyway? I do. But maybe it's only a woodworker thing nowadays. I have one of the cool old hand cranked pencil sharpeners in the shop like we had in school (OK yes, I am over 40).

So anyway, here is a sort of chronology of a project I have made several of. It is a tramp art pencil box, though I suppose you could put whatever you want in there.

I start with thin layers of carveable wood, in this case, some discarded walnut. I re-sawed the boards and planed them to about 1/4" thick, maybe a little less. Then the various sizes were cut so that they descend in size and the layers build up.

This photo shows all the pieces for a box notched and ready to assemble.

Finally, here is a finished walnut tramp art pencil box, complete with a handle made from salvaged lightning rod wire from an old barn.

Walnut Tramp Art Cupboard is Finished.

2010-02-05T20:51:00.012-05:00

I put the finishing touches on this little cupboard last weekend. After my last post I decided that I wanted to carve some simple wood knobs for the drawers and add another notched layer to the drawer fronts. In this layer I carved rounded notches instead of V notches. Looking at it now I wish I had done the drawer fronts with thinner layers to give it a more refined look. But I am happy with the cupboard overall. Here is a close-up of the drawers . Here is a shot of the knobs in progress:

If any of you are doing tramp art I would be very interested in comparing notes and techniques. The old saying goes something along the lines of 'Ask 10 woodworkers how to do something and you will get 10 different answers'. I find this to be very true and always learn something when I talk to another artisan.

Thanks for taking a look today. I will be listing this cupboard on my website and Etsy store.

Tramp Art Cigar Box Cupboard nears completion.

2010-01-17T13:38:00.002-05:00

I finally took some time to work on this cupboard yesterday. I had been procrastinating until I decided what to do with the top. I want this to be a little "shrine" area for small critters. I added a notched strip at the back of the shelves after deciding they were a little boring. Now I like them.

I also framed in the drawer fronts. Next I will add wooden carved knobs to the drawers and try to get the piece finished.

I recently received Tramp Art, Another Notch, Folk Art From the Heart, by Clifford A. Wallach for a great friend. If you want to drool over some amazing tramp art you will want to read this book.

Walnut cigar box tramp art cupboard is started.

2009-12-17T13:56:00.005-05:00

Following the success of my recent showing at the Wheeling Artisan Center, I decided to make a few more small cupboards based on cigar boxes. I have been gathering boxes for a little while and was able to get three different cupboards started. This post concentrates on the early stages of the first design.

For this design I stacked 5 cigar boxes with spacers in between the boxes. I removed the front and made small drawers to go in four of the boxes. The top box will be open with a small shelf. Here I still have the lid on the top box but later decided to remove the lid and have the top box open.

After assembling the boxes I started edge carving and adding the thin layers of walnut. The walnut is salvaged from a pile of lumber that was too thin and knotty for a picture frame maker to use. So far, all the parts of this project are salvaged or re-used in some way (accept for the nails and glue).

Check back after Christmas. I hope to have more of the cupboard finished and posted by the end of the month.

I need a place for Tramp Art.

2009-12-17T09:42:00.004-05:00

In January Wesbanco Bank in Parkersburg, WV will be featuring my Tramp Art in their lobby. I am excited to have my work on display and appreciate their support.

The situation is that it is a hung show and several of my items are sitters. So I came up with a Tramp Art/Rustic solution.

I made four different version of this shelf from scrap cedar, birch bark, walnut and croquet mallets.

So now I have a place to put my Tramp Art for display. I am also going to list these on my Etsy store: http://robgorrell.etsy.com/

Tramp Art Mantle Clock

2009-11-06T13:40:00.007-05:00

One of the most recent Tramp Art projects that I finished is my Tramp Art Mantle Clock. It went on display at the Wheeling Artisan Center last night and sold in about an hour. Now that is a good feeling.

The clock took a while to make because I switched designs part way through. It was going to be covered in a design based on Native American basket designs that looked like flowers and leaves. Unfortunately when I got them cut out and started getting it together it really, really, was not working out in an attractive manner. So I started again with this design which I am very happy with.

Beer caps, brass tacks, salvaged wood, and wooden knobs were incorporated into the design in a three color paint scheme. It is also the first piece of mine to have scalloped notches along with the standard "V" notch. The different notch shapes add interest to the shadows on the clock and I plan to add more variety in future creations.

Tramp Art Frame After Dark

2009-10-07T09:20:00.008-04:00

Sometimes a project starts one way and ends up completely different from what the artist imagined. This Tramp Art style frame started out as two items needing to be something; a mirror from 1949 and some orangish red glass disks that we had stashed away.

I started with the basic frame and built up a couple edge-carved layers around the disks. I added a salvaged crest and brackets....and there it sat, for weeks. I could not decide how to finish it. Initially I was thinking of something kind of circus inspired with lots of red and yellow paint. But it just wasn't working for me.

Then we went to Paris on vacation. We spent the evenings walking around watching the city lights, the reflections in the Seine the starry skies and all the shadows on the ancient churches. Now I knew how to finish this frame.

Here is the frame nearly finished after adding the shelf, more tramp art carving and brass tacks for stars and midnight blue distressed paint.

But it still wasn't quite right. Shelley looked at it and suggested that I add more tacks to the front crest to make the whole thing more cohesive. We also decided to use a gold paint pen to accent the sunburst carved into the top crest and a few lines in the brackets on the front corners. This along with the antique mirror really pulled the project together for me. I am happy with the outcome.

This frame will be part of my exhibit at the Wheeling Artisan Center in November.

Here is the finished frame. I plan on having a better image of the frame on my website soon.

Getting ready for cool weather.

2009-09-09T10:41:00.002-04:00

It is the time of year to clean up around the yard and shop and get ready for cool weather. In addition to getting new pieces ready for my show at the Wheeling Artisan Center in November, I have been working on adding a metal working area to the shop. I have always wanted to have an area dedicated for welding and torch work, along with some basic blacksmithing and tinwork.

Soon the evening will be dark and cool and I will want to hole up in the shop and make stuff for the evening. Between now and then I will be away from the shop for a few weeks. I should be back to building new stuff and posting pics here at the end of September.

Rob

New tramp art church box underway.

2009-08-17T09:43:00.009-04:00

Final Church Box in series underway.

I have been working on a three piece series of tramp art cupboards that are influenced by church architecture. I have seen images of a number of antique tramp art items based on churches and crosses and wanted to try to incorporate the influences into my designs.

All three pieces are based on a small cupboard with either 6 0r 7 salvaged drawers.

The first tramp art church box was a study in triangles for the steeples. I also added some small metal scrollwork pieces to the steeples that you cannot see in this image. I plan to have much better images on my website soon.

This cupboard is painted off whites and pale greens that remind me of the faded and mossy stonework in some of the European churches that we saw on vacation a couple years ago.

The second in the series took a slight turn when Shelley and I were talking about the idea of incorporating a tryptic into a tramp art piece. So I guess this cupboard is more on a church interior work.

I wanted to present the idea of something exciting hidden inside a plain box, in the way that some religious icons are hidden in plain cupboards to be opened on special occasions.

The doors are covered in very rusty and weathered tin roof shingles from an old one-room post office. The outside of the cupboard is simply finished walnut. But when the box is opened to reveal the three panels inside.....POW.

The third and final tramp art church box in the series is underway. As you can sort of see in this picture, I am incorporating more curved elements into the steeples.

I have not been working on it much lately as I have been rewiring and rearranging my shop, and getting ready to go to the Woodlander's Gathering.

When I get back I will be adding much more detail to the steeples and drawer fronts.

All three of these pieces will be part of my show at the Wheeling Artisan's Center in Wheeling WV, Nov 5-28.

Hidden Tramp Art Tin Cupboard

2009-07-30T15:21:00.012-04:00

For a while now I have been playing with the idea of surprise, the finding of the unexpected, the light under a bushel theme. I wanted to design and create a tramp art piece that did not look like a tramp art creation at first glance.

The design came to me as I was working on the church box that I posted a while back. I decided to hide the tramp art in a box.

Shelley and I have been talking about working the idea of a church triptych into a tramp art or folk art design. We like the idea of a three-panel design enclosed in a cabinet that would be opened on special occasions. This project seemed like a good place to try it.

The cupboard shown is made from salvaged walnut. the drawers are more of the discarded router cabinet drawers that I have used on other projects (I still have hundreds to use). You can see that the tramp art elements are on the drawer fronts and the inside of the drawers, and can only be seen when the cabinet is opened and presented.

The doors are wrapped in some very rusty roof tin from the old Grape Island Post Office. The layers of rust, paint and dirt add a wonderful patina to the tin.

The inside of the cupboard needed to be bright. I decided to use red, white and blue with a little bit of weathering. I wanted the opening of the cupboard to be a blast of color.

Now that the cupboard is finished I look at it and wonder what it is about. Is the red white blue buried under a layer of decay? Or is the spirit symbolized by the colors bursting forth through the darkness? Hmmm. That's for someone deeper than me to figure out.

To go to Rob's website: http://twigchair.com

The Tramp Art Cross with angels is finished.

2009-07-22T18:31:00.002-04:00

Here is the finished Tramp Art Cross with Angels. I did not originally plan on the finish being this dark and weathered looking, but I like the way it came out. The finish is a combination of layers of stain and paint with an antique glaze finish. It is a bit hard to see in these pictures but the angels have distressed gold-leaf wings and heads.

You can also see this and all of my other Tramp Art and Folk Art items on my website http://twigchair.com/ and my etsy store http://robgorrell.etsy.com/.

New White Willow Loveseat for the porch.

2009-07-05T19:53:00.011-04:00

I finally got around to building the new love seat for our porch that Shelley has been after me to build. The old one was did not really go with the other chairs I made a few years ago. You can see the chairs on the near side of this picture.

I cut the willow a couple of months ago along the Ohio River and peeled the bark while it was fresh. If you wait too long the bark is difficult to remove. I let the willow to dry a few weeks to make it easier to paint.

The design for this love seat is sort of like an adirondack chair. I use the willow for the frame and pine boards for the seat, arms and back. This makes for a very comfortable love seat or chair that mixes the adirondack chair and twig chair themes.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of the completed frame to show how the slats were made and put on the frame. So here is the completed twig love seat on the porch.

Tramp Art Cross with Angels.

2009-06-27T23:13:00.003-04:00

OK, so this is not the cooking area I said I was starting on. But when inspiration hits you have to run with it. This tramp art cross is about 20" tall and has two primitive carved angels. It is inspired by an antique I saw in Tramp Art - A Folk Art Phenomenon, by Helaine Fendelman and Jonathan Taylor. This is a great book with many wonderful tramp art examples.

I am not sure what type of finish I will put on this cross. I guess it will sit for a few days until I can decide what to do.

Final pictures of the Tramp Art Church Box

2009-06-13T14:29:00.005-04:00

Here are a few detail pictures of the Tramp Art Church box. It was a fun project to build and I have a couple similar projects in the works. This piece is for sale on my website http://twigchair.com and on my etsy store, http://RobGorrell.etsy.com .

The next project I am going to start on is a cedar log outdoor cooking area. It will be made from cedar that I picked up at the Woodlander's Gathering last year ( http://woodlanders.com ). I will be using salvaged lumber and old roof tin along with the cedar.

Stay tuned.

2009-06-02T07:51:00.005-04:00

Tramp Art Church Cupboard is nearly finished.

The first in a three piece series of "Church Boxes" is nearing completion. Over the weekend I finished the tramp work and started the painting process. I tried some new things on this piece includeing adding some beads and jewelry parts. The glass knobs on the drawers were cylindrical glass beads that kept cracking and falling off, so I changed them to square wood pulls.

I first painted the box with a mixture of golden yellow colors. That layer was distressed then painted an off white. This was distressed then painted with a light coat of white. The next photo is before I did the last of the distressing.

In the next few days I will finish this piece up and get it posted. The next Cupboard in this series will have taller steeples and will have more of a southwest theme to it. Stay tuned.

Rob

Tramp Art Jewelry Cabinet

2009-05-22T22:02:00.003-04:00

I have started on a three piece series of small cupboards or jewelry boxes. Each one will be variations on a church spire theme. In this series I am trying to branch out in my use of beads and jewelry parts as part of a tramp art project. When all of the tramp work and ornamentation is done the cupboards will be painted and antiqued.

The basic cases in the series are made from discarded walnut lumber. As in most of my work, I am trying to build mostly with salvaged or re-used wood.

Twig Table update. Almost finished.

2009-05-06T16:12:00.000-04:00

Tanya's table is nearly finished. The top has been shaped and sanded and the beaver chewed willow base is complete. All that is left to do is brush on a finish of Earth friendly water based polyurethane.

The base is assembled with mortise and tenon joinery. I used the Veritas tenon cutters and Irwin bits to cut the joints and yellow glue as the adhesive. The willow was extremely dry and wanted to chatter in the cutters. But a sharpened cutter took care of the problem. Sharp tools are a must. The bottom photograph shows the assembled frame before I fitted the top.

In order to get the top boards to lay flat I used a rasp and draw knife to smooth and shape the willow rungs to fit the barn wood top. Getting old warped barn wood to lay flat and look good on twisty twig rungs usually takes me a few rounds of rasping and fitting to get just the right shape.

So this project is nearly ready to deliver. I will add a final photo later. In the meantime I have several yard projects to get on as soon as the rain stops.

Returning a favor from a friend.

2009-04-28T13:33:00.000-04:00

About a year ago an artist friend said to me at a gallery opening, "I have this barn full of stuff you should dig through and see what you can use." Well anyone who reuses materials knows that this is a must do situation. Over the summer I gathered some great lightning rod wire, rusty tin, some barn wood, a couple cool doors, and some odds and ends. In return for the materials I was to make her a table using some of the barn wood I salvaged.

This entry is the first of a couple that will focus on building the table. It is to be a variation of a peeled willow table I made several years ago. This table will be made using beaver-chewed willow gathered from along the Ohio River last summer. The wood has dried and will work well for the table frame.

1. The Materials

After drying over the winter these willow saplings are ready to turn into furniture. I selected four pieces with the ends completely chewed by beaver. Using beaver-chewed wood adds a level of uniqueness to a creation.

Three pieces of barn wood are going to be used for the top. The pieces were lightly planed to smooth the top without loosing all of the character of the barn wood. In this photo you can see that I have begun to layout and cut the boards into the serpentine design for the top. The boards were cut free-hand on the band saw and will be sanded smooth.

Next time: The Frame.

2009-04-19T15:14:00.000-04:00

It is finally finished. We are pretty happy with the way the cabinet came out. You cannot see the colors of the stained glass in the photo, but with the light on in a dim room the colors are nice.

This cabinet, along with the rest of my selection of rustic furniture and tramp art will be on display at Washington State Community College, Marietta Ohio, through early June.

2009-04-14T13:29:00.000-04:00

The deadline approaches.

There is nothing like a deadline to inspire creativity is there? We are nearly finished with the Tramp Art Cupboard that has to be delivered for an exhibition on Friday. I finished all the Tramp work and Shelley has been working with me on the paint. We are using Old Village paints, Folk Art acrylics and gold leaf to get the desired effect. The photo on the right shows the red and light green layers as they were before last night. We added the other colors and gold leaf before we stopped for the night. All that is left to do is to distress the finish and clean the cupboard up for delivery. It has taken much longer to build than I expected (as usual). I will post more in process photos soon.

An update.

2009-03-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

So March is almost over and I am a quarter of the way through my Year of Rediscovery. I am currently working on a pie safe sort of cupboard with a stained-glass door and lots of Tramp Art decoration. The photo shows where I left off over the weekend. The design on the side is inspired by the design in the stained glass door. This cupboard is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. When all the tramp work is done we will paint the cupboard.

I am also working on some yard projects around our house. Here is a driftwood bench that I installed over the weekend. It is a large driftwood slab that I pulled out of the Ohio River last summer. The base posts are Red Cedar.

A new project underway.

2009-03-19T10:47:00.000-04:00

I am going to be one of a few artists featured in a Spring Quarter Art Show at Washington State Community College in Marietta Ohio this spring. I am excited to be included in the exhibit and am trying to get some new work ready to show.

One new item that I will be posting photos of soon is a tramp art pie safe. A few years ago I built a primitive pie safe with an antique stained glass door. The door came from Great Stuff by Paul in Frederick Md. I have decided to repurpose the cupboard and turn it into a tramp art cupboard. It is about 1/4 of the way finished at this point. This weekend I plan to take some in-progress photos and post them here.

Also, it is about time to start a few outdoor rustic projects in the yard that I plan to feature on here.

Thanks.

Rob

Hello.

2009-02-25T09:15:00.000-05:00

Hi. I am new to blogging, so this post is just to get me up and running. I will be adding more soon. My website is twigchair.com.

Rob