Walking Stick Z - Part 8

I just wanted to check in to update my progress on my walking stick.  I am slightly over half-way on
wood burning the Celtic Knot Work.  Here are the latest pictures.

In my earlier blog posts on the stick I showed how I drew the knot and linked the knot into strands.  The first ten inch strand took about two hours to wood burn. The later strands only took about an hour and a half.  The difference is time is because once I moved further down the walking stick it was easier to control the stick while I was burning on the design.  I expect that the bottom of the stick will be as difficult as the first section. 

I start at the top of the stick and work my way down to the bottom. The top of the stick is rounded so you don't hit yourself with a sharp edge in case of a fall while hiking .  The bottom is flat so that the stick does not easily slip.  In the
event that the pattern does not end directly at the end of the stick, and has to be cut off mid-pattern, I
want that at the bottom of the stick, not the top.  It is not as easy to determine where the pattern will end as you might think.  You can measure and get a good estimate, but little micro-adjustments that are made here and there as the pattern is applied can make a big difference in where the end will actually fall.  If the spiral is made a little tighter or looser to accommodate variations in the walking stick will not match the measurement.  

Anyway, I am about five hours in on the wood burning.  As you can see in the photos, the Celtic Knot Work spirals around the stick.  The spiral has several inches between the coils.  There are two reasons for this.  The first reason is that the looser coil means less wood burning.  The tighter the coil, the more strand of pattern have to be wood burned on.  I like the knot work, but lets face it, this is a stick, and there is only so much that people are willing to pay for art on a stick.  The second reason is that there is plenty of room in case I get really inspired and decide to add a poem or Shaman Staff.  It was interesting to bring the element of poetry into my art.  I've left myself the option to go all out.  If not, the stick will still have plenty of charm once it is completed.
add some additional small knot work to the walking stick.   I wrote a poem for my walking stick entitled

Besides the rest of the knot work, I will also be adding gold paint to the wood burned sections.  The gold against the dark brown of the wood burning really highlights the pattern.  It also covers up some of the wood burning mistakes that were made along the way.  After the painting is done, I give the whole walking stick a coat of antiquing medium mixed with a little paint to give the stick a warm glow.  And then of course the whole stick is given three coats of sealer.  There is still plenty of work to be done.

I don't think I have shown a picture of the top of the stick yet.  Not content to let the rounded top be, I decided to add a star to the very top of the stick.  It has not yet been sanded.  Some of the scorching will come off once I give it a good sanding. 

So that is about where I am on the stick.  If the weather holds, I will be outside wood burning again this week and I hope to get another ten inches of wood burning done at least.  I will try for twenty inches, but I am not optimistic about that as I have a very busy week.  In the mean time, I will be blogging more on what can be accomplished when crafting a few minutes at a time.  Check back next blog post for some new photos on Halloween craft projects and some wearable art.