Since moving to Jacksonville, I haven't had quite the woodworking facilities that I'm accustomed to. I've been making do with a few trips to SCAD's furniture shop and to my parents' house... but I just can't produce the volume that I used to, mainly because now I have a full time job.
So, I decided to take up a new (old) hobby: pottery! I loved sculpture and pottery so much in highschool that my dad built me a pottery wheel, but I haven't even seen it in years. Anyway, here I am with some fresh bowls:
I am certainly enjoying clay again, but I could never leave my favorite material; plywood. Especially not after the awesome
writeup that I got on Babygadget!
A little excerpt:
"Looking to add a little 3-D design to your nursery decor? Consider these beautiful sculptures by Sara Schalliol. An industrial designer by trade, this Southern girl spends her evenings working on structural gems for you and me. With their minimal lines and graceful forms, Sara’s plywood creations are contemporary yet somehow soothing - perfect for modern Moms and babes (and Dads!). The orange bird would be great hanging over a crib or changing table. And the dino? He'd be fab just about anywhere. If you're not as obsessed with orange and natural as I am, Sara's sculptures do come in many other colors. All her work ships flat and is easy to assemble."
It certainly made my day, especially since it seems to have generated a lot of interest and a few sales for my birds!
After getting my new job and preparing to move, I realized that I wanted/needed (who really needs any kind of table, though?) a new coffee table. So I whipped this one up real quick. I was totally NOT IMPRESSED with the Maple plywood I bought. I suppose I will forever be a Birch girl. Anyway, it was inspired by a $800 (I think) table I saw somewhere or other. I think I may adorn it's top with Blik wall decals.
I finished these trees in the last few days. This is the first mustard yellow tree ever, but I quite like it. These burnt orange cacti sell pretty well, for some reason or other. Lots of times I feel like I'm just remaking designs over and over. But, it seems a little silly to work on new things when I don't have my original items in stock, so maybe in a few days I can start on something new.
And, the first dinosaur!
I'm still making some adjustments so that it can't be put together incorrectly. Still, sadly, I think I'll need to include instructions.
Here is the skeleton, all put together.
They are my usual CACTI, but with holes drilled so that earring posts can pass through.
As far as what I design to sell on Etsy, I like to keep everything flat-pack and easy to ship. Lately, I've been wanting to create a volumous form using just two-dimensional planes. So, at this point I had a form that looked more or less like a rocket. Initially I was envisioning the light bulb being somewhere near the top, but still contained inside of the ribs. Here's a view showing how everything fits together:
Obviously I needed a more opaque Nylon to soften the light, but it was a start. I still didn't feel quite right about the form. I was excited about it and felt it had great possibility, but it wasn't quite there yet. Eventually I decided that the form I created would make an excellent base, but I was missing an upper shade (more like a traditional table lamp). So, the top portion of the lamp could be covered with a fabric to diffuse the light, and the base could remain open.
