Club Meeting: 21 August 2024
Report by: Garry Jones

Shannon gave a quick introduction of himself and what his demo was going to cover this evening

Inspiration – He started off talking about what things you can get inspiration from by thinking out side the box of woodworking and showed us a pottery cup that his daughter had made and decorated by using a screwdriver to make the patterns

He also talked about using other tools that you might have lying around in your shed and experimenting with patterns and not to be afraid to try something new as it might lead to something exciting

Shannon then talked to a few bowls that he had experimented on and embellished with different methods and tools and showed us the techniques he used

He then demonstrated how he uses the Woodcut Pro mount artist clamp that had a bowl attached and created a pattern with a Phillips screwdriver into the walnut bowl, when he had completed the pattern he then filled to marks with a coloured wood filler (Timbermate) that he purchased from Bunnings

Next he moved onto the demo about Paint Carving- He mentioned a friend of his that is doing this type of art Hikurangi Edwards, she is worth while looking up if you want inspiration to get into this medium.

Shannon demonstrated and talked about how he prepares the bowl and how many layers/coats of paint he puts on and this depends on what you want to achieve, he used Resene test pots for the paint and typically put on 30-50 coats. He also mentioned that the paint takes a lot longer to dry in the winter between coats so this might be something you want to think about.

He showed us the tools that he cuts the patterns with which is just a normal lino cutting set that he got from an art shop but you can also get them from Bunnings/Mitre10 or Temu etc

Cutting the groves for the pattern is a lot easier that cutting wood as the is no grain to create resistance but you do need to make sure that you control the depth and pressure during the cut

The audience asked a lot of good questions and Shannon gave very good and informative answers, one question was “can you use a Dremel on the paint” and he said he didn’t know but had a Dremel with him so he tried it and guess what, it worked, so we all learnt something

Shannon then invited members to come up and have a try which a few of us did and found that it was reasonably easy to do so hopefully we will see some examples of the demo on our Show n tell in the future

Thank you Shannon for a very informative and inspiring demo