I haven't posted any work in a while mostly because I was having difficulty photographing the glossy finishes I prefer. With the help of tutorial written by John Lucas concerning exactly that topic, I was able to set my lighting in a way that produced decent photographs. Now I have a few items to show off that technique. This one is a dyed Big Leaf Maple calabash. The bowl is about 9" in diameter and the flame and eyes are quite striking. I had to deal with a loose know and wasn't willing to lose the depth of the bowl so I secured it with blackened epoxy. I used a blood red alcohol based stain as a base color, sanded it back and over dyed with yellow water based dye. Using water over alcohol kept the colors from running together. The finish is about 8 coats of precat acrylic lacquer leveled between coats. Final sanding began at 500 grit through 4000 grit abralon pads. The inside is left natural color and was sanded back to only 1000 grit to leave a satin finish.
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