Walking Stick Z - Part 2

Saplings stored in the rafters to dry.

I'm back from my travels and trying to get back on track.  A couple of blog posts ago I started to blog
about selecting a stick to use as a walking stick.  To recap, it is better to have a sapling than a branch, and it is better to have a hard wood than to use a soft wood such as pine.  I had a beautiful stick someone had gifted me made out of pine.  It broke and was glued back together twice.  When it broke the third time that was the end of it. Every time I let someone borrow that stick, it came back to me broken.  The wood was too soft to take the treatment it was given.

Note the crack on the stripped sapling.

My father had a friend that made walking sticks.   They had faces painted on them in a very primitive
style.  His other friends all thought they could make a better stick and set out to do so.  Every one of them failed.  When I said that I was going to start making walking sticks my father just told me not to even try.  I would never be able to do it.  I was really surprised.  He was usually not so negative about my creative endeavors.  The gist of the problem was that everyone of his friends that had tried to make a walking stick had a crack develop on the stick.  They really had no understanding of working with wood.  By not knowing the techniques of working with the material they kept running into the same problem.  To be fair, there was no internet at the time, libraries may or may not have had books that they needed, and if they did not know what information they were looking for, it was harder to figure out what was going wrong.  I did know the solution though and thus began my walking stick art.

The problem is that most people think that you just pick up a stick and start carving, painting, or wood burning.  That is incorrect.  Walking stick making is a craft that requires a lot of long term thinking and planning.  Long term in that if you want to make a walking stick today, you needed to start working on it three or four years ago.  Why?  Because freshly cut wood is green wood filled with sap.  If you cut down a sapling and strip the bark off of it right away, the sudden loss of moisture causes the sapling to crack.  Even after two years the ring underneath the outer bark can still be green and will crack when stripped.  Years after you have selected a sapling it has dried enough to be ready to carve.

But, first things first.  I use Locust saplings.  They are a hard wood.  As they dry and age they become dense and are very durable.  If you don't have Locust trees, choose another hardwood variety.  Choose saplings that are several years old and slightly taller than seven feet.  This will give you a thick stick that will support your weight (or won't break if you are using it as a fighting stick).  Cut it to a length of seven feet.  Then it is time to let it dry.

If you leave the bark on the saplings while they are drying, some cracks may develop at the each end.  By initially cutting the saplings longer than your finished length you have allowed for the cracks and can cut them off and still have a decently sized stick.  Here is another problem.  If you want to strip the bark off the sapling so that it is smooth and ready for carving or wood burning, it is easier to do it while the wood is green.  However, if you take the bark off while the sapling is green, the wood is likely to develop a long crack down a good percentage of the stick.  Precautions have to be taken to keep the stick from cracking.  As you strip the bark, wrap the stick in plastic wrap as you go along, leaving the ends slightly exposed.  Don't wait until you have completely stripped the stick to start wrapping.  It does not take long for a crack to develop.

If you leave the bark on the sapling while it is drying, it helps prevent cracks from developing especially in the middle of the stick, but it is the dickens to get the bark off once the sapling is dry.  I have sometimes resorted to power tools to grind off some of the more difficult spots.  It is a lot more work, but I think it is worth it if it helps preserve the stick.  If you don't want the extra work, I recommend the stripping and wrapping method.  I really suggest that you try both methods and find which method appeals to you most.

The saplings need to dry in a well ventilated place.  I dry my saplings in the rafters of our shed.  This barn has a lot of circulation so the saplings have air moving around them twenty-four hours a day.
After three or four years, they are ready for becoming my next walking stick project.

Even if a crack develops, it may not be the end of the world.  The walking stick may still be useable if the crack is only cosmetic rather than structural.  I have used copper wire or leather to wrap a stick to hide a small crack.  If all else fails, call it an art project and have fun decorating it or use it to practice your carving and wood burning skills, or cut it up and use it for kindling.  There are a lot of things that can be done with a stick.  Just ask any kid.

Check back Thursday for the next blog post.

Digressing Momentarily for Cabin Repairs.

Only way under the house.

I have been away for several days.  I was planning to blog more about the process of curing walking sticks but ran out of time to make a blog post before I left.  I will be writing more about that on the post on Sunday.  I need some time to photograph, process, sort, and post the pictures. 

Damaged floor.  New vapor barrier now in place.

Regular readers know my husband and I are in the process of renovating the cabin.  It is sixty years old.  The cabin is definitely in need of repairs.  Some joists were rotted and needed replacing.  The underlayment was crumbling. The flooring is linoleum from the 1960 1970s or thereabout.  Some of it has crumbled to tiny bits in places.   Our mission this past week was to repair the  joists, remove the rotted flooring, and patch the
flooring so that it will be ready for a new
floor.  Next trip up we plan to install laminate.  While we had everything torn up, we also installed a vapor barrier.  Hopefully that will take care of some of the moisture issues.  The cabin has never had a vapor barrier before, mainly because there was no way to get under the house unless you took up the floor.  I was practically freaking out while Bill was under the floor.  Old houses, you have to love them.

When we were in the mountains in April, the trees were still barren at the higher elevations.  The Piedmont was already green, but only the tiniest of trees were putting out leaves up above.  This trip everything was fully green.  It is amazing just how quickly things change once the weather warms a little.

Most nights the temperature was in the forties but daytime temperatures were in the sixties to low seventies.  (Fahrenheit)  It seemed a bit cooler because the wind was blowing 25 to 35 miles per hour during the day.  The wind would die down in the evenings, but everyone needed to wear long sleeves and a sweatshirt or jacket. 

Anyway, I'm back home now and ready to get back to a normal routine.  Sunday I will have the blog post and photos on curing saplings for making walking sticks.

Walking Stick Z

A tall stick and a Hypertufa project.

I don't really have a title for my new walking stick project.  Until I come up with a better one I decided to call it Walking Stick Z because my husband saw the latest stick I was using and said it looked like a good stick for fighting Zombies.  In case you are wondering what all that is about, I'll tell you that we are fans of the television show, The Walking Dead.  It is about Zombies.  Silly, but you have to start somewhere. 

The stick is a hefty stick.  At the moment, the staff is exactly seven feet long.  (More on the reason for that length in a moment.  The diameter of the sapling is an inch and a half at the base and an inch in diameter at the top.  This is a Locust sapling.  Locust is a hardwood.  A fighting staff six to nine feet long is generally called a Quarterstaff. 

I feel compelled to mention at this point that I personally did not cut down any saplings to obtain the

Locust wood.

sticks.  There is a farm field just down the street from my home.  Every few years the farmer goes out and cuts down the saplings that shade the field.  After he has cut them down, I get permission to cart off some of the saplings to make walking sticks.  The key work here is permission.  Don't assume that that land full of scrub trees is not owned by someone and that they won't care if you are on the property cutting saplings.  The saplings are going to the dump or burn pile eventually so the farmer doesn't mind my hauling off as many as I can use.  Some saplings are too small or too thin to be usable, but I generally manage to come away with several sticks.   

I have heard a number of people complain that they have tried to make walking sticks and the sticks have cracked.  There are some tricks to the trade of making walking sticks.  I thought I'd go through the process step by step.  It might save some people from losing a good stick. 

First off: choosing a stick for the walking stick.  It is better to have a sapling than a branch.  Most branches are either too thick or too thin.  Also, branches tend to be curved or wavy as they branch and its leaves grow in various directions in order to reach the light.  For a walking stick you want a straight stick so that the weight you apply to it as you walk (or fight with it) will be transferred down the entire length of the stick.  If a stick is curved, the weight will be transferred down until it gets to the bend, then there is nothing beneath it to support the weight and the stick can crack.  That said, every once in a while you find a branch or sapling that has a very artistic curve to it.  They can be useful for making a beautiful art stick.  Just consider your application for the stick before you start.

As I mentioned above, the staff is currently seven feet tall.  The sapling was taller.  I use a chop saw to cut them down to seven foot lengths.  I generally start with a taller staff than I want because cracks can develop while the stick cures.  These cracks generally occur at the ends of the staff during curing.  By leaving the staff long during the curing process, you can generally cut off the cracked portion and still make a staff of reasonable length. 

The first photo illustrates the current length of the stick.  In the lower left corner of the first photo you can see one of my Hypertufa spheres in progress.  The spheres are cast as half spheres then bonded together with concrete bonding and thin set mortar.  The stand is cast Hypertufa as well.  More on that in some other blog post or look back through the blog listings to find out more on Hypertufa.

There is more to the curing process than I have time to discuss in this post.  Next blog post I will have more on the techniques of curing the walking sticks.

Mandala 2

I really enjoyed beginning working with the Mandala book.  The first mark was a little intimidating, but after that I enjoyed getting started on the project.  It is a matter of relaxing and letting go enough to begin.  For me, there is always that inner critic who says it is not going to be good enough.  I have to battle down that inner critic before I can get started.

The book I am working with, Mandala Luminous Symbols for Healing, 10th Anniversary Edition,by Judith Cornell, PH.D., Quest Books, USA comes with a CD of meditations and exercises.  I used to work a lot with guided meditations but had drifted away from them.  It was refreshing to work with a guided meditation again.  I felt very relaxed afterwards.  The meditation is also printed in the book.  I found it helpful to read the meditation first, then play the CD.  After that, I was ready to do the exercise.  I suppose you could actually do the exercise while the CD was playing, but I prefer to work in quiet.  In the past I have found that whatever music or CD I am listening to tends to affect the direction of my work.  I would rather work in silence and allow the ideas to well up without interference. 

In the past, I have mentioned on my blogs that I know I am on the right track when synchronicities begin to happen.  I have already had two since I started this project.  It is as if the universe is telling me that it wants me to continue in a particular direction.  The first synchronicity was was on my Facebook page.  The day I began the Mandala project a video of a sand mandala created on a pottery wheel was placed on my Facebook page.  It was a mesmerizing video of patterns of shifting sand.   The post was made just as something someone thought I would find interesting.  She had not read the blog.

The second synchronicity came right after my last blog post.  In that post I has said I had thought that the Muse was the mythological inspiring spirit for a man and the inspiring spirit for a female was called a Djin.  That was incorrect.  The correct term for the spirit supposed to inspire women was called a Daimon. (Pronounced DYE-mon).  I was reminded of this the very next night after I had made the incorrect blog post.  I read a book of meditations in the evening before going to bed.  That particular meditation was on courting the spirit of inspiration.   The meditation indicated the proper term.  I actually did know that, I just had a temporary failure to recall the proper term.  It is not as if the book of meditations was art focused.  The meditations are about many different subjects.  This one just happened to hit at the time necessary to give me the information I needed.  In other words, a synchronicity.

The photo above is my second exercise from the book.  The exercise only tells you how to make a drawing.  What you draw is of what idea wells up into your mind.  The exercises build on one another so that you progress through to more difficult Mandala.  Eventually the exercises lead into color as well, so things won't always be in black and white.  However, black and white is a very comfortable place to start.

I know that not all of my readers are going to be interested in Mandala.  I am concerned that I may grown bored if I only focus on making Mandala.  I am going to switch between the Mandala project and a second project.  This is not all that unusual for me.  I usually have more than one project going at one time; usually a quilt project and paper mache' project, or something to that effect.  When I reach an impasse on one project I put it down for a few days and work on the other project until I have had time to work things out.  The projects don't generally begin at the same time, as they are this time.  Starting a project alongside one that is already in the works seems to help with the motivation needed to start the new project.I find that I have to limit myself to no more than three projects at once so I don't get too scattered.  Eventually one project becomes primary and
receives most of my attention.  I will also be blogging on my second project intermittently during the Mandala project. The first blog post on the second project will be on this Sunday.

Beginning the Mandala Project

I have my favorite medium but once in a while I feel the need to try something new.  If I do only one thing, I begin to feel stuck in a rut.  New ideas don't come as easily.  I guess I am in on of those phases at the moment.   Usually I have a backlog of things I can't wait to get started on, but at the moment I'm not really feeling like starting anything.  That is why I decided to get back to something I started on a long time ago, but was sidetracked after an being injured in an accident.  This project has some special themes that seem like it might help get me back on track.  Another reason for not getting anything going is that Spring is here
and outdoor projects, trips, and events are

This is the workbook with exercises.

holding my attention.  After a cold and snowy winter, it is just to nice to be indoors.  As the
summer heat builds, I will be spending more time indoors, which means more time in my studio.

Mandalas are ancient ideas.  They are drawings about energy manifesting as vibration and light and creating form.  It is energy coming from elsewhere and manifesting into something tangible.  In a way, this is how all art is made.   A project starts as an idea.  Some people say that they feel inspired to make something, or that something they have seen or heard has inspired him or her to create a piece of art.  Think about that for a moment.  Something that was not there before managed to come enter into someone's mind as an idea.  That idea is then manifest into form.  Something has been created that was not there before. 

Where do these ideas come from?  In ancient times people said it was a Muse, an actual spirit.  (At least for men it was a Muse.  I think the term used for spirits inspiring women was a Djin.)  Later ideas, such as those written about by Carl Jung call it the Collective Unconscious, psychic material stored in the unconscious.   Some people call it the Abyss.  Whatever the actual name or method, if there is one, something entered into conscious thought and proceeded through physical effort (energy) to become a solid object. 

Since I am stuck for manifesting ideas at the moment, working with the Mandalas seems like a good way to get started again.  Focusing on creating symbols that represent the process of creation will hopefully help stimulate creation in other areas.  The brain tends to develop in areas that are given attention and exercise.

I am planning on working with Mandala in a couple of different ways.  My primary focus will be on a workbook with exercises on creating healing Mandala.  Why healing?  What is burnout but a form of psychic illness.  The cure for burnout and depression is to bring energy and light back into your life.  The book I am going to be working with is called Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing.  Judith Cornell, PHD. : Quest Books, Wheaton, Illinois, USA: second edition 2006.  This book is still available on Amazon.  I will also be working with some other forms of Mandala from time to time.  I will tell you the books I am working from as I get to them.

The photo above is one of my first exercises from the book.  It is just about envisioning light manifesting.  I had a hard time starting it.  Sometimes just making the first mark is intimidating.  The only thing to do was begin.  I could only come up with the idea of the Big Bang.  There was nothing; then there was an a moment when energy tore from somewhere into our sphere of existence.  Then came an explosion, and matter went spiraling out in all directions.  It is not great, but it is a start.  I will see how it goes from there.

I am not sure how long this process of working with Mandalas is going to take.  I also plan to be working on a walking stick.  I will be blogging about both projects as they come along.  Maybe between the two projects I will feel like I am getting back to having all sorts of ideas again.

Something New

I have recently completed two projects: a quilt and a paper mache' Halloween project.  I don't like it when all of projects end at the same time.  It leaves me feeling a bit unfocused.  It is easier to start a second project if there is another ongoing.  Otherwise, it feels as if I am staring at a blank canvas and I have no idea what belongs there.  It feels like my creativity decided to take a break.  Sometimes that is necessary.  Every once in a while it is time to take a break.

I want to start working on another walking stick.  I really enjoyed working on the last one.  I found that I liked wood burning.  I wood burned a poem and pictographs on the walking stick.  I would like to try another stick with my original poetry and have sat down to come up with a poem.  I thought I would make it something similar to the last theme, but at this point I have not been able to write a suitable poem.  I may have to find a different theme.  The inspiration is just not there at this moment.  I remind myself that I stared at the last stick for decades before coming up with the idea for that particular theme.  It was a special stick.  The new walking stick may not be as special as the last one.  It may only have a pattern on it rather than a poem.  At any rate, I will work with it for a little while longer before beginning the wood burning. 

People may think that staring at a blank walking stick is strange.  I would liken it to something Michelangelo had said.  I'm paraphrasing, but it was once said that the figure was in the stone and the artist just had to release what was there.  Taking time to understand what wants to come out allows the artist to bring forth something special.  Sometimes images and ideas seem to appear out of the blue if you can be still and allow the ideas to come through.

At the beginning of the year I had listed some goals for the year.  One of the goals was to do some work with Mandalas.  My first trial was a spectacular failure.  I had an idea that if I used a platter as a mold that I could make some paper mache' platters that had Mandalas painted on them.  That did not work out.  I tried two methods of laying paper mache' over the mold.   In both instances the paper curled upwards and would not stick to the mold.  At that point I became frustrated with it and decided to let the project sit for a while until I was ready to tackle it again. 

I guess I am at that point that I am ready to go back to the Mandala project.  Even if they don't get cast onto a platter shape I can still start working on the patterns.    I feel drawn to it, even though beginning is somewhat intimidating.  I started working with a workbook on drawing Mandalas.  It suggests using black drawing paper.  No matter the color of the paper, staring at a blank page is always difficult.  The only way to begin is to make a mark and see what happens.  I'll show you my drawings as they progress. 

I know that once I get started I will find a direction and get going.  It is just getting started that is hard.  I will show you a photo of the start of the new projects on Sunday.

Anthropomorphic Halloween Figure Completed

The figure is complete, although it did not turn out to be the figure I intended.  Once I started, it became plain that my plan to have this doll move its arms and legs when a string was pulled was not going to come off.  Rather than ripping the shoulders off the figure and making a different kind of joint I decided to save that idea and use it on another figure.  I decided to turn this figure into a dangle doll.  A dangle doll is another type of doll that was around when I was a kid.  The figure hangs from a stick.  When you walk around carrying the doll on the stick, the arms and legs sway as you  move around.  The movement gives a sense of animation, as if the doll were alive and moving.  As I've said before, children were easily
amused when I was a kid.


I put this doll on a stand that I purchased from a thrift store.  A slight breeze or someone walking by can create enough vibration to make the doll move its arms and legs.  It sometimes feels kind of strange to walk by and catch movement out of the corner of your eye.  When I put this figure out at Halloween I expect it to have a lot of spook potential.

Anthropomorphic figures are very popular decorations are very popular Halloween decorations.  Some are created as a single vegetable with arms and legs.  Others are a conglomeration of vegetables that have seemingly come together to take on a humanoid form.  This figure has a large pumpkin for a torso, with small Jack O'lanterns for for the shoulders and another Jack O'lantern for the head.  Rather than using vegetable representations for the arms and legs I painted the limbs to look like leafy vines.

I think at this point I am ready to say that this project is complete.  It could be further embellished to add some vines and leaves coming off the head of the figure.  I am not sure how much that would add to the project though.  I am eager to get on to a new project.

Check back on Thursday for more on the new project.  It is time for something different.

Anthropomorphic Figure for Halloween Part 9

Painting of the head is still in progress.

So, after a brief interlude I am back to working on my Anthropomorphic Halloween Figure project.  As I blogged recently, I had experimented with making some home made modeling clay.  I used the clay to make heads for a couple of projects.  Yes, the clay worked, but I just did not feel totally comfortable with using the clay for the current project.  Nor was I really enthralled with the shape of the head I had made.  I
decided to make a new head for this project.

I decided to make the new head from paper mache', although I did use the stem made from the experimental clay.  I enjoy working with paper mache' and know how it is going to act with the other art materials I am using.   The head armature was aluminum foil covered with three layers of paper mache'.  Each layer dried completely before another layer was added. 

A piece of dowel was poked into the head and glued in place with white glue.  A corresponding whole
was cut into the shoulders of the figure to receive the other end of the dowel.  Once the head is complete the dowel will be glued inserted and glued into the body.

I have begun painting the head, but it is not yet complete.  First I painted it with a coat of Gesso.  The orange paint is fairly transparent so it needed a coating of Gesso to keep the print from the paper showing through.  After that, it was a base coat of orange paint.  Then I began to paint the facial features.  I still have a lot of shading to do on the head. 

I expect that I will have the head completed and the body put together by Sunday.  Once the body is put together I may still go back and do one more embellishment.  More about that on Sunday.

Abstract Art Quilt

I've completed another quilt.  This one is not so much a pattern as it is abstract art.  I saw a scrap quilt in a quilt magazine and I like the concept.  The name of the quilt in the magazine was No Scrap Left Unturned.  I know the person who was created the idea was named Nancy, but I cannot remember her last name.  I think she might be the host of the show Sewing with Nancy.  However, I did not make the quilt until a few years after I saw the quilt in the magazine, so I could be completely off on that.  At any rate, I did not copy the quilt exactly, I just used the idea of how the strips were pieced by sewing on geometric shapes.  Basically you use bits of scrap material to sew geometric patterns onto strip pieces.  The bits of scrap are folded into triangles, rectangles, or trapezoids and placed on various locations on the strip of fabric.  Those strips are sewn to a plain strip to form rows of alternating patterned pieces and plain pieces.  The rows are sewn together to form stripes lengthwise.


I decided that the strips would be pieced completely randomly.    I'd pull a piece out of a bag and sew it to the plain strip.  As the strips were pieced together it began to from small patches of color in one spot or another, but I think that it came out well.  You could spend all day looking at the different colors and patterns on the pieces.

(Please scroll down for more text.  The blog platform is giving me a problem with how to place the pictures and text today.)

The quilt is only a large twin size.  For these photos I laid it across a larger bed.  I wish it could have been larger, but even at this size it took a long time to make this quilt.  I would sit and sew a few blocks each night while we sat down to watch television.  I also hand quilted this piece.  I have so much going on during the day that my only quilting time is in the evening.  Quilting while watching television turns what is generally unproductive time into something useful.

It has only been a few days, but I am already missing having something to quilt.  I am planning my next quilt.  I expect that the new quilt will have a lot of hand embroidery on the piece as well as being hand pieced and quilted.  I may also have some applique on it as well, but I don't expect that I will try to do needle turn applique.  It will be a great while to complete it as it is.  I haven't even started shopping for material yet.  One of these days I will post a picture of the new quilt. 

I have also been working on my anthropomorphic Halloween figure.  I decided that I did not like the head I had made and made another one from papier mache'.  I was just about ready to start painting when I realized that I had neglected to add a piece to hand the figure.  I will have new photos on Thursday.  Progress is being made, it is just that Spring has begun and our activities have increased.  I don't have as much time to work on my projects.