Learning To Turn Better Bowls

Apparently, making bowls was more than a brief experiment for me. I've been squeezing in lots of time, this summer, practicing with new wood and refining my techniques.

Here is a Red Gum salad bowl I made for Melissa.


Walnut...


I got lucky and found an abnormally large Rose of Sharon log being thrown away.

I used it to make one of my favorite little bowls (below). I turned it green and it has really warped since. I don't mind. I love watching it dry and change shape. The wood is pure white and like plastic after polishing.

Another curb-side find was a Sweet Gum log yielding this...


My Aunt Kim got this Ambrosia Maple bowl as a gift for letting Melissa and I stay in her lake house.

My Mom and Dad got this pretty little natural edge Dogwood Tree bowl.

This Lightning Struck Poplar bowl has neat ribbon figure...



My friends, Tracey and Jeff, took down a Silver Maple and Sweet Gum tree from their yard and donated several logs to my cause. The Silver Maple turned out to be infected with ambrosia beetles and they helped to make the wood much more interesting, though most was too rotten to use. I was able to get a couple bowls from it. This one has gorgeous figure but I don't like the final shape of the bowl.


I like this bowl shape better. There are four beetle holes on the bottom of this bowl. I decided not to fill them in because I think it's neat to remember the beetles. This bowl will have to be used for something other than liquids.

I think the Sweet Gum was my favorite, though. Here is the bowl I gave Tracey as a gift for the wood.


This one went to Michelle, Melissa's sister. It was a gift because she was the first person to ask for a bowl. I really liked this one. It is a perfect little bowl shape.


I picked up a really neat Crab Apple log from Carlton McLendon's...

Much of it was rotten but I still managed to get four bowls from it.






Including my first enclosed form.


I also messed with a Bradford Pear log and got one of my favorite bowls...

Yesterday, I cut up a rotten Dogwood tree log and manged to get a really neat bowl (below). This bowl is heavier than I usually make. I really like the feel of the sturdiness. And man, that Dogwood is gorgeous wood; reds, dark browns, creamy sap wood, a touch of spalting. This may be my new favorite bowl.