The Spinarettes got me turning small. And since they included tear dropped shapes I thought I'd use that shape and my newly re-acquired fine motor skills to start a Cliche Series - starting with A Drop In The Bucket. This pair of pieces, in addition to beginning my Cliche Series, is a homage to the Cubist painting Nude Descending The Stairs and the inventor of high speed photography (I'm still trying to add some dynamic movement, or an implication of movement, to other wise static turned pieces).
The "dropplets" are poplar and the "water" and bucket are fruitwood. There is NO finish on these pieces - just sanded to 1500 and burnished with brown paper bad paper. BTW - these are also turned lidded bozes and a significant departure from the ones I've been doing. The buckets were hollowed and shaped with a 1/2" curved edge skew and the dropplets were done with a plane old square end, single bevel bench chisel - Buck Bros. specifically.
Drop In The Bucket 1 & 2
The Buckets are 1 5/8" diameter and 1 3/4" tall in cse you're wondering about scale.
Turning small lead to this next one - poplar hammer, nail and top of head, black walnut with parts "ebonized" with vineger and rust solution - and a piece of 0.015" diameter "piano wire" so the hammer moves if you breath on the piece ( I CAN turn small - that small - but can't turn curved round at that scale). Used a Razer pyrography unit and pen to burn in the details on the pedestal - more as a quick and dirty "I wonder what it would look like if . . ." thing. Should've dusted the piece off before taking the pictures.
The (Head) squared is because the hammer strikes the nail on the head and the nail in turn is on the top of the head - or at least the top of the skull - a little artistic license.
Here it is at abot actual size.
This next little piece is a great example of chucking up some wood with no idea where I was going. Experimenting with undercutting in an attempt to turn a "splash" for the Drops pieces took me to this next idea which seemed to come out of nowhere - A Cocktails Cascade - turned from a 1/2" poplar dowel. This may be the 1/10th scale prototype for a full sized, or maybe half sized piece - liqueur glass, champagne glass, wine gobblet, brandy snifter and martini glass - shot glasses are for alcoholics and margarita glasses are too ethnic ; ). The liqeuer glass needs to be smaller with taller sides - but I didn't know where this thing was going when I turned the tail stock end of the blank. The wine glass should also have taller sides that neck in a bit more. I was going to turn all champagne glasses but that seemed too repetative and boring.
Cocktails Cascade