The Chronicles of Amber (Tree Progression Thread)

[Roan]

Finished Amber:

Here's the amber, finished.



I just hope to heck I have enough.

Now we move to my tree work table and all the pictures of the process will be taken there.

So, here's my work table:



And here is my work table with everything numbered. Labels in this post under picture:



1. Notebook this is where I keep track of the number of stones I'm putting on each branch. I also use it to total up the number of branches. All this information is used to determine how long it took me to make the tree so I can calculate pricing.

2. Marble Slab: this is your typical marble leather tooling slab. It's a great piece of rock to have

3. Loctite 409 Glue Tube: Dat's what I use. Silly stuff has to be refrigerated for storage.

4. Stone Holders: Where I dump the stones when I'm putting them on the tree.

5. Implements of Doom: Old wire cutters, tweezers coated with Tool Magic that I use to pick the stones up with (you didn't think I used my fingers, didya?).

6. Cotton Swabs: for removing excess glue.

7. India Inks: Real India ink, NOT acrylic. Acrylic doesn't work well.

8. Varnishes: These are just a couple of the varnishes I use. The one on the left I use to coat the bottom of thin or "fragile" or soft slabs (like unstabilized chrysocolla, Picasso stone). The one on the right I use to put a "shine" on rough stones.

9. Elmer's Glue All: three bottles, different viscosities. I add water to make it thinner.

10. Sand Mix: This is the sand I use for the bases. It's actually a mix of play sand, aragonite and crushed coral. The lid to the tub is used to hold the tree and base while I form the sand mounds.

11. White Mica: I often use white mica under the sand to build cliffs and hills. It's light and easy to peel and shape.

. . .

ETA: just realized how cool the back of that table picture looks. Those are trees in various stages of completion and it really looks like a forest of sorts. Neat!

Those trees are, starting from the bare one at the front and going left to right:
1. a jade tree
2. a little rhyolite tree that I need to finish shaping
3. red aventurine wind-swept
4. chrysocolla on chrysocolla mountain
5. brown wire frame
6. "The Year of the Horse" - blue goldstone and a glass Chinese style horse. Need to finish shaping that one.

[nansaidh]

Wow! What a neat work area, Eileen. It must be a pleasure to sit there and work on your projects. It looks very peaceful and happy. I'm so blown away by your trees... what an incredible amount of work (and obviously patience)! I love your work. Wow wow wow.

Nancy

p.s. what do you use the India inks for?

[Roan]

Hah! It's only neat because I cheated and cleaned it up for the pictures

I use the family room and my master bedroom for my art, and my fish. To the right of that table are two 75g fish tanks, lengthwise. Then along the next wall is a 45g tank and my huge bookcase. Along the next wall is my other art table that has my Turbo Carver and wood burner that I use for my gourdwork. Then my big "L" computer table, where I am right now.

Upstairs are all my easels and pastels. I'd take a picture of all this but I'll have to take a week to clean it up, first

As for the India ink -- that's how you color the bases of the trees. We're almost there with the amber one. Soooooon.

Eileen

[Roan]

Hammering the Loops

Now we hammer each loop so that it has a flat surface. I use a tack hammer and my trusty marble slab:




Nice flat areas with lots of surface contact for the glue. It also serves to rough up the wire and give better adhesiveness:



As each branch is completed, it's pulled downwards, out of the way:



Once all the branches have been hammered and are facing downwards, I begin pulling the branches upwards (to get them out of the way of the trunk and roots) a preliminary shaping. Primary and secondary branches are twisted and turned so they are not all facing one direction:



Now the branches have the basic tree shape and are out of the way of the trunk and roots:



Now we can work on the slab (if need be), finalize the design, and begin setting the tree onto the base.

. . .

[Roan]

The Slab!

I had originally wanted to go with the Arizona pet wood slab, but decided that stonesthatrock was correct -- this one is best:



It has this really awesome chatoyancey (chatoyancy?) that photos don't do justice to and it doesn't over-power the color of the amber. You can see the amber at the top of the picture and how well it goes with the stone.

I don't know what that is though -- is it palm wood?

One thing I don't want is an overly shiny slab. I find it takes away from the tree itself. I usually finish the slabs with my dremel if they have cut lines and apply a coat of bowling alley wax for shine.

Currently I don't have any means of removing magic marker from stone that won't result in grinding the whole thing down, so I create my design so the the "6-" is covered with sand-mix:



Sometimes the slab is just a little too small for the root structure, so, depending on the type of tree I'm making, I sometimes cut the roots. If I'm making a mountain-type tree, I just build the sand-base up and weave the roots through the base. In this instance the roots are cut and the ends are hammered down:



If you look closely at the roots at the front of the tree you'll see some faint pencil marks. Those are so I can fit the tree in there after I apply the glue . . . .

[Roan]

I have removed the trees and large amber pieces, applied Elmer's Glue All, then replaced them again:



Now, if you think Elmer's All Purpose Glue won't hold to a rock -- HAH! When this tree is thoroughly dried the only way to get the tree off is to soak it for at least 2 hours in a bowl of water so that the glue lets go. Even then it won't come off cleanly. You have to soak it for a couple of DAYS to get it all off. The best way to pick a finished tree up is by the trunk, believe it or not Great stuff, this glue.

Okay, so we have the large amber and the tree semi-stuck to the rock. Now we take our sand mix and create a moat:



I love doing the bases. It's one of the most creative

The moat holds in all the glue we're going to pour in and keeps it from spreading all over the place:



. . .

[Roan]

Starting from the outside of the glue "lake" we begin to slowly add more sand-mix:



The idea is to do it slowly so that the glue is forced into the center and underneath the tree. That will give it a "mound" appearance.

All of the glue has been covered with the sand-mix:



Now, we wait.

It will take around 4 hours for the glue and sand to dry enough that we can apply another, probably final, layer.

. . .

[nansaidh]

This is so exciting - I feel like I'm helping! LOL ;D

Nancy

[Roan]

You are

[sitnwrap]

Eileen, you said that you flatten each circle of wire that will hold an Amber. How do you do that? Is there a special tool, cause you can't lay each loop on the block and hit it with a hammer.

If that's one of the things you don't wish to devulge, no worries.

Can't wait to see the start of the Amber.

[Roan]

Sept 13, 2008 17:56:37 GMT -5 sitnwrap said:

Eileen, you said that you flatten each circle of wire that will hold an Amber. How do you do that? Is there a special tool, cause you can't lay each loop on the block and hit it with a hammer. . . .

Wanna bet?

That's exactly how I do it and that's what I'm doing in the picture I posted on page 3:



I use a tack hammer and hammer each one. Single loops get about 3 taps and the tail end gets about 5 taps.

Pain in the butt, but necessary.

Eileen

[darrad]

This is so good of you to take the time to show us how you do this! Each time I get on RTH this is the first thread I go to in anticipation of more. Thank you!!!!

[Roan]

Sept 13, 2008 21:07:33 GMT -5 darrad said:

This is so good of you to take the time to show us how you do this! Each time I get on RTH this is the first thread I go to in anticipation of more. Thank you!!!!

You're welcome

[Roan]

Still Building the Base

Once the sand mix is dry enough, we dump the sand out:



Create another moat and redo the entire process:



This is done repeatedly until we have the base looking the way we want. We can even go back later in the tree creation, if we are not happy with how things look, and add/subtract more sand mix.

Sometimes we want roots to show, sometimes not. All depends on what seems to look best.

. . .

Just a note that although we are still building the base here, I'm waaaay ahead of this and am putting the amber stones on. I only have x amount of time to process pictures and post, though.

Anyhow, my point to the above is that after I painted the base, I was not happy with it and went back and added more sand. Pictures to come.

[adrian65]

Your results are fantastic, but there's a huge amount of work behind them. Thank you for sharing with us!

Adrian

[harryz]

That is a great work of art and like every one i am eager to see the final tree.

Thanks for sharing the info Eileen.

Harryz

[SteveHolmes]

wow! I totally lost track of this thread, and re-read it in it's entireity. Eileen, you're doing such a Fantastic job on this tutorial. It blows me away the amount of wire used, the amount of twisting and turning yu have to do, and the amount of TIME that these trees take. What a TALENTED LADY you definitely are. And then to take the time to post pictures of the progression...that is up and beyond the kind of peson you must be. I am still shaking my head at the amount of work that these trees consume. I really enjoyed reading the pages, and found myself with my mouth wide opened and on the edge of my computer chair. I too look forward to the next update.
Thanks so much for taking the time to post this for us.
BTW...the tree is looking very cool! ;D
Steve

[nansaidh]

I wholeheartedly agree with Steve's comments - this is really an amazing process. I thought I was detail-oriented but this really re-defines the concept!

Nancy

[Roan]

Thank you very much for your kind comments ;D Reading this makes doing a progression very worthwhile and rewarding.

Years ago I was a very active member of Wet Canvas!, an online artist community, and was the moderator of the Pastels forum. Did a few pastel tutorials for there and some progression series as well, so doing something like this isn't new for me. It does slow me down a lot, though.

The work isn't as slow as it seems as I usually have four or five trees going at once on the table and at least one being wire-wrapped. While I wait for glue or ink to dry on one tree, I swap out that one for another.

With this series, however, I've only two trees going. One being wrapped while I watch a few movies and this amber tree.

Eileen

[cbjames]

I am loving this tutorial. Before reading this I thought I might want to make one of these trees one day. Now I think I will just buy one. What a labor of love!!