It’s hard to stay away from carving Whales. After the balsa bout, I itched to get back to Meranti, so here’s Whale 28. This fella’s a bit odd in size because the wood block that’s available is wider than most of the other pieces that I have done. Oh well.
It is kinda cute in its own way and once I paint it with the new pearl Pink Taffeta color, it will just be so gorgeous!
I thought carving up Citizen #182 was significant so I bought new colors to commemorate it. This time, I decided to introduce shiny colors for variety.
So besides painting up Citizen #182 in pearl Taffeta Pink, #183 was also given the new color, the glitter blue. Not content with this, I then refreshed a few earlier Citizens, adding clear glitter on top of their existing colors.
Maybe this year, glitter is the way to go as this latest batch look very pretty and shiny. I like ‘em.
Picture not giving the gloss and glitter enough prominence
This 16/8 diet seems to be really good for me. So far, coupled with my activities, it’s been effective – I feel good and there’s more to this. That’s why I call it a win-win-win-win situation.
The 16/8 is strictly on weekdays but I have lost weight. Win number one.
On weekends, I play golf. Win number two. And after golf, a nice lunch where I would eat and basically don’t restrict myself. I only avoid food that can cause discomfort due to my Endometriosis. But as I now eat at a 16/8 time frame, my tummy has shrunk and no matter what nice food are on the table, I don’t eat a lot.
The best part, I also drink during lunch. Win number three. A couple of whiskey shots, not necessarily excessive but enough to feel good. Sometimes at home at night, a glass of wine to relax. Alcohol, I must admit is one thing I can’t give up. I should stay away from beer though because unlike, wine and whiskey, I tend to drink more and that’s not good.
And I wouldn’t say I eliminated sugar totally as I do find myself snacking on some candies and cookies occasionally during the window to eat. Win number three and a half?
For the final win number four? Carving of course! I have turned to balsa for now because the existing stock pile of Meranti wood are not the right sizes for carving any Whales or even Gnomes. Basically a lot more work is needed to cut them to size and I avoided this to preserve the wrist prior to the Iron Challenge golf tournament.
But now that the tournament is done and over, I am in a good place to go back to carving, first with balsa to increase the population count of my Citizens of Gigglesville and eventually back on Meranti. What a win-win-win-win situation indeed.
Citizen #182 from all angles
After a four and a half months break, 26 Whales, two Monuments and nine Gnomes later, I finally carved a Citizen of Gigglesville. What a long break. I had almost forgotten how to carve a Citizen on balsa, taking a longer time than I normally would with #182, the first one for 2019.
But it looks good, I must say. It was awkward to hold, being so small and the balsa being so soft; I have forgotten what it’s like to control my strength. Despite all these shortcomings, I am pleased because there’s no strain at all on the left gripping hand and I can play golf without any nagging pain.
Maybe I should continue with more Citizens on balsa instead of the others on Meranti to preserve the hand. Reaching 200 population count is not impossible if I keep at this.
Our garden is just a wonderful place for the creatures that come visiting. Birds, treating our place as their private kitchen, come daily to feast on the bird seeds put out for them. There’s also squirrels that bound through the hedges happily like their little playground. One of the squirrel, a rascal, will eat official pet number one’s leftover dog food or boldly come into the house and help itself to bananas (if we have this) on the kitchen counter.
The garden thrives because hubby has the green fingers, not me. I hardly venture out because I stay indoors in my little area to do my carving. Even if I do go out, it’s more at the terrace to do mostly sawing, hammering, cutting or drilling, never beyond the tiled boundary for gardening. So it was a bit of a surprise when I discovered the habanero plant has grown as tall as me! And the chillis are plentiful. I have shared so much of our harvest with friends and family.
The thriving garden also had us discovering a new caterpillar! This time on the Calamansi Lime tree at the side. I wouldn’t have known if hubby didn’t tell me. You could say it’s Munch Pot 2.0.
This time I decided to take its measurement with a ruler to keep track of its growth. As of now, it’s 2cm long. I hope this little fella will grow well and won’t disappear mysteriously like Munch Pot who used to be at the Calamansi Lime tree in front of the house.
The big and the mini vise clamps
A week before Chinese New Year, I bought a bigger vise clamp and put it to good use immediately over the weekend purchase. And in the midst of working on two whales back-to-back, I injured myself. But on the left foot! Huh? Where’s the connection here?
Let me explain…
The vise clamp worked beautifully and held the block well; I was able to shape the block without exerting any strength on the left hand which was good. But in the midst of the carving action, I got up too fast and caught the edge of the table so hard with my left foot. Ouch hardly describes the excruciating agony.
The shooting pain was right on the Lateral Malleolus, the bone bump and it bruised beautifully. What a sight to behold…
Top (L): the day after, Top(R): after golf, a week later and Bottom: four days after the knock
Those cute whales are such killer whales I tell you. It was a good two and a half weeks before the bruise subsided. As for the pain, it is still there.
Actually, carving on Meranti wood is not good for me. While it may be satisfying to channel my energy into it and then feel the joy whenever a lovely piece is completed, the choice of the wood is the culprit that adds to my Wrist Tendonitis woes.
I was carving a lot of Meranti whales in December and they are much bigger pieces than the Gnomes and Citizens, which unfortunately have not increase in their population count. And being bigger pieces, it magnified the Wrist Tendonitis on the left hand because I have been gripping the wood block too tightly, looking back at the situation now. Sigh.
Although I have a vise clamp albeit a mini one, it cannot clamp the block for me to work on. And I have not been using my workbench enough to ease the situation. It is not the repetitive motion that’s causing the flare up because the repetition is on the right hand, the carving hand, and not the left hand – the non-working but gripping hand.
If I am not carving daily, the situation can be contained because with ample rest, nothing gets aggravated and it’s fine. The therapy sessions, which concluded, helped but I must not overdo things that can cause a recurrence. That something obviously being carving, of course. And I guess I overdid it in December. Oops.
Then in January as we were busy preparing for M2 to leave, carving took a backseat. But after M2 left, I was back to carving whales full swing AND playing golf before Chinese New Year, double whammy you could say. I felt a teeny weeny set back. Uh oh.
The whales, cute as they may be, are really killer whales. And I’d better take care especially if I want to play more golf this year. Perhaps I should go back to balsa instead of Meranti or get a bigger vise clamp if setting up the workbench is too much? Something to seriously consider.
Besides buying hubby a gift for his birthday last month, I also asked him if he would like his own personal Gnome, carved on the same date as his birthday. Of course, being my biggest fan and supporter, he said yes.
But he wanted his Gnome to be different from the rest and this complicated matters. Haish… Why put me in a spot? If it were to be different he would have to wait until his next birthday because I need to develop my characters and this takes time. Can’t just happen overnight, what more on the day itself and not earlier considering it should be a birthday Gnome. Hmm…
So we compromised. Carved on Meranti and not balsa, it dons a golden yellow cap instead of the usual red. And although it’s shorter than the other Meranti Gnomes, it is taller than the balsa Gnomes. Sounds complicated. Nonetheless, he loved it and decided that his Gnome will be the designated leader of the pack. Cute little fella I must say.
Carving whales to be smart phone holders are suddenly so passé. It is 2019 now and new characters have taken flight! The latest pod of whales are smaller, rounder and super cute. I find this direction very refreshing but puts the thought process into overdrive and can be very draining at times. My dinosaur brain can’t process that fast, I guess.
With this new direction, the Citizens of Gigglesville have not grown, neither have the Gnomes of Gnomie-wood. It’s okay, I am sure I will get around to the others in due course.
Sometimes it’s fun to experiment with materials. I have a bottle of glow varnish purchased in the middle of last year and yet to be used on any of my carvings. One evening many moons ago, I couldn’t decide to start a new piece or simply just put the finishing touches on some existing ones. Then I remembered the Gandalf-like purple Gnome has yet to be varnished.
So I decided to give it the glow varnish to have it glow in the dark like some mystical character. But it’s hard to capture the image on my iPhone5S and I left it as is without further experimenting the effects.
Then not too long after that, I purchased a bottle of glitter gloss and I thought this might work better especially during the day. Forget the glow effect at night that might scare the bejesus out of myself.
My giant Gandalf-like purple gnome now sports a glittering beard but subtle.
Before the add on…
Glitter on just the beard
Angieneering 
Remarks