I make a STARGAZER OWL

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 3 of becoming famous for my sculptures. In this episode I will try to turn this walnut log into a stargazer, and the stargazer I'm talking about is going to be a small owl sitting on a branch in the middle of the winter looking up at the crystal clear starlit sky. As you can see the log I bought for this project had some cracks in the ends so I started by cutting those away, and then I discovered this small hole running through the entire log. I saw this as a small problem to fix and I could use the cutoff endwood for the repair later in the project. Here's the final design I came up with for the stargazer. I went through a couple of sketches first before I settled on one design, and trust me when I say that the final result will always be different from the design I came up with. I decided to start with a big part of the branch just below the owl, because I knew that this part would be at the surface of the log, so that made it a perfect place to start. And well, when I start with the carving it is not with great confidence. I usually spend a lot of time in the beginning just cutting little by little and trying to make sure I do not make any irreversible mistakes. When I take my time I reduce the stress of the entire process and it becomes much more enjoyable. So I quickly found out that it would be faster to make some larger cuts with the bandsaw. However this is not the proper way to use a bandsaw and I have to be more cautious from now on. When you cut something like a log which is a round surface the blade can get stuck and toss the log violently around, which is very dangerous. And you will soon see proof of what I just mentioned. If I had my hands close to the blade you can imagine how this would have turned out. So that was a big oopsie, and I will not do this again. The blade also got ruined unfortunately. So as a punishment for my reckless decision I went back to the handsaw. If you like what you have seen so far a good way to support me is to subscribe. Thank you so much. So now the carving begins. I'm starting off with an angle grinder with a 40 grit sanding disc. Then I'm moving over to a rotary tool. I'm trying to the best of my ability to visualize where the cuts will be made. Strangely my ability to do this varies a lot from day to day. So it's all about taking it easy on the off days and then trying to get work done when I feel like I'm on fire or something like that. Well well, look at what is emerging from the wood. I have been able to catch the spirit of the owl I wanted so far. I wanted to have a thick feather coating since it is sitting outside in the winter cold, and I also want the wings to be tucked up close to the head. And now the dreaded and scary moment where I start carving the eyes. My main focus here is to have the eye sockets go far into the skull. For this project it is especially important to get this right since the whole stargazer concept relies on the owl looking at the stars. One thing I am a little bit uncertain about is how to price a sculpture like this. The plan is to have an exhibition at the end of the year so I won't be selling anytime soon, but at one time I will have to figure out what to charge for one of these. If you have any suggestions it would be interesting to hear about it. So the eyes came out alright. Phew, what a relief. At this moment I still have not figured out how to carve the iris and pupil, so I will be saving that for the end of the project. When I decide what to make when it comes to my sculptures it's always random ideas suddenly popping up. I have over time understood that I have to capture them, even just as tiny sketches on my sketchbook. Then I can later come back and build on the ideas. Now let's work on the wings. I already have a solid foundation for them and that makes the rest of it pretty easy. I just have to figure out how to layer the feathers. I made sure to carve deep to create a puffy 3d effect. This might be the part I was looking the most forward to because I have seen other old wood carvings and I think the feathers on the wings look particularly beautiful. This will not be the last owl on a branch that I carve. I think I will be sticking to joyful expressions though because I really like it. I mean the world really needs some joy and positivity. And also for me personally it feels great to try to capture a positive mood in my sculptures. For my next project I have a sleeping bear cub in my mind. For the branch I wanted to twist and bend in many directions, kind of as in a fairytale. Although we do have pines near where I live that pretty much looks like this. I brought the sculpture inside one day and it could not handle the temperature changes that well. It formed a large crack from the center of the log all the way down the owl's body. I'm still learning so I wasn't very sad about it, but I will make sure to not repeat the same mistake again. And if you heard some ducks you are correct. Here they are enjoying life. Time for the owl's feet. I must admit that I was tempted to just hide them under some thick feathers at the feet area, but eventually I decided that the sculpture would benefit from having some eye-catching claws to look at. I'm not sure if you noticed this, but I'm working a lot on the owl when I'm not filming. This is not major stuff like the eyes or the feet, but small details here and there that needs refining. I have filmed some of that for my earlier projects and the truth is that it's really not that interesting to watch. But I guess I could be better at filming some time lapses for specific areas to communicate better how the whole process is. This is the third sculpture I'm making a youtube video out of this year and I'm curious which one is your favorite. Mine is this one because of the concept behind it and because of how it all ended up looking in the end. Time for the details on the face. A fun fact is that after I did all these details around the eyes I went back and dulled them down. I felt like the grooves became too deep and it created a more human-made look than I wanted. So I tried to make it look more random and it made a big difference. And for the feathers on the wings as well I tried to make a random pattern. And I want to let you know that this area was a nightmare to hand sand. A diamond bit burr set on around 5 to 10 000 rpm gets me a long way, but the finishing touches has to be done with sandpaper. The bit I am using right now is a coarse diamond bit burr. I'm not sure the fineness of it but I think it's around 120 grit, which is kind of in the middle. Walnut is a very hard wood so it can take time to make something like this out of it, but since it's so hard it allows for more details. Since last episode I have not invested in any new tools, but I am tempted to buy an electric chainsaw. As you may noticed in the start of the video I had troubles figuring out a good way to remove a lot of excess material quickly. A small electric chainsaw would be perfect for that job. This was a relaxing part of the project, carving out random root patterns. I recommend it as a small project for those who want to start carving. You might wonder what I'm doing now all of a sudden. Well this is the piece of wood I will use to fix the hole in the sculpture I discovered. As long as I can make it fit well it should come together nicely. I decided to use the Curious sanding machine to make the small wooden stick round. As you can see I did not center it very well, but it worked out all right. I actually have a large wood lathe I should have used instead. Now I am deliberately creating more sawdust as if I need that. The dust will be mixed together with epoxy to color it in the same color as the surrounding wood where the hole is. This is why I am extracting it from the middle of the log. The hole actually appeared two other places in the sculpture, both at the branch under the owl, but I did not fix those. I figured that it would just add to the natural look. I am making sure to saturate the hole with epoxy since I do not want any air pockets around the repair. I actually bought another walnut log and I think it has the same type of hole running down the center. I'm not very familiar with walnut yet, but maybe this is just something that happens naturally with walnut. I am being very careful when I'm tapping the stick with the hammer. I do not want to create too much tension, but I still want it to be a nice fit. Now I just need to remove the excess parts of the repair stick and give it a little bit of sanding to see how it turned out. And well, I call this a success. Since it has been repaired now I can finish the area. I'm not sure what these feathers are called on an owl, but I'm sure they have a name. Perhaps there are some owl experts watching this video who can help me out. Moving on to the iris and the pupil. I was not able to film all of it, but basically I decided to carve out holes for both the elements. Initially the owl got a bit of an evil look to it, but I decided to dilate the pupils and then it started looking more trustworthy. Well, this was a horrible idea. It ended up not being flat at the bottom at all. I was able to fix it though with a sanding machine and some hand sanding. So I did a small time skip. Here is the block I will attach the owl to. It is walnut and the light area is an unknown wood species. And you can see that I did some work at the bottom of the owl sculpture as well. And now it's time to oil it and reveal the final result. Thank you everyone for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video. And a big thanks to my patrons. So it's very interesting that I was able to turn a log into a sculpture like this. And that is why I acquired another log. And it's a lot darker and a little bit bigger than this one. So I'm very excited to use that for my next project. And for my next project I think I will try to make this. So if you want to support me you can check out my shop or subscribe and leave a comment and a like. And other than that I wish you a good day and I hope to see you in my next project. Goodbye!