Turned Owl Protecting Treasures

There are only a few viewer submitted turning projects, so I thought I’d add one to the list :) This one is not really my design. When I was still very active on my Facebook page I had this fun idea. Instead of doing boring giveaways like all the other pages do to thank their followers and attract new people, I thought I would make the competition a little bit more fun. Last Fall I announced a giveaway but the visitors who wanted to participate had to design a Halloween themed project and submit it.

The design with the most “Likes” after a predefined period of time would win, and I would then make the design out of wood for the winner. That was a fun challenge, not knowing what they would come up with. So this Owl came out as the “winning design”. My turn to make something that looked like the drawing.
Turned body and eyes, and a bit of basic swinging around with a carving knife for the rest of the parts. I added some trays so it could be a functional jewelry box.
It turned out pretty well and the design was so popular that didn’t take long before I was busy making an entire Owl family.

This was a very fun project, not that difficult and the very basic carving gives it a nice touch in my opinion. I find that especially younger people think of woodturning as a boring craft. And I get that because a lot of projects that cross my eyes have this “old” look about them. So I try to make things that attract younger people, and particularly this Owl turned out to succeed in that mission. Still a small step in saving the art though since woodworking as a hobby or art is dead here in Belgium.