This is my second piece in the Lotus flower series. The flower (bowl) is made of Cotton wood, fluted, carved and lots of sanding. The piece was going to be by it self, but as I was hollowing it out, I blew holes in the upper part of the flower. When the hollowing was complete and getting over my blowing holes in it. Decided to cut a little more than 2 inches off the top, reshaping the top, doing more carving and sanding, in-turn it opened it up more like a bloom opening up. It now needed something to finish out the piece, so I turned a Spruce platter, laying out the leaves and then carving the leaves both upper and lower.
Once the piece was off the lathe then came a bunch more work. Using acrylic paint both for the flower and leaves, I got to work. The flower is painted red, orange and yellow acrylic paint. Before letting it dry I used a wet brush to pull up the paint and leave brush marks to make it look more like Mom Nature did it. The inside of the flower I left unfinished. Next came the leaves which I used a darker green on the bottom and a lighter green on top. Also on the leaves I wanted the wood grain to show through, so I watered down the paint to make this happen.
After letting the paint dry for several days, proceeded to apply the finish. Using high gloss wipe-on-poly, I applied 5 coats. To cut the sheen and to be able to see through the finish, the top coat was satin wipe-on-poly. I kept track of the hours for this piece and the total was 60 hours.
The piece is 15 inches wide and 7 1/2 inches tall. The flower is 7 1/2 inches wide and 6 1/2 inches tall. It's all glued together with wood glue
