While snowflake season is in full swing, it’s still time to be working on prototypes for this spring.   I’m currently working on two lines – one involving wood leaves and one that uses dragonflies.

Here’s a sneak peak at the leaves.   The small versions will be used for pendants, magnets,  as augments to larger items for decoration such as bird feeders and other stuff.

The larger ones will be used to build into larger items such as bird feeders, trivets and other fun ideas that I’m exploring.

I’m working on several different concepts, including an artistic approach like the leaf in the bottom right – rounded and more of a smooth caricature.  It’s made of red oak for the main part of the leaf and walnut for the petiole and central vein.

The other leaves use different ideas.  The top right leaf is a red oak shaped leaf, using red oak for the main part of the leaf and walnut for the stem/vein.  The bottom left is a walnut shaped leaflet, using all walnut.

I’m building other examples using ash, maple and other hardwoods.

A quick rundown of the process.  Two triangles are made from cutting a thick square block into identical halves.

The example on the right is using red oak on the right and ash on the left.

A shim is made from a contrasting material – in both cases here I’m using walnut.  These are glued up and left to dry.

Once they are dry, you cut off small blanks from the blocks, similar to thin wooden fans.  Examples are shown on the right below their respective parent blocks.

You then decide on a leaf pattern and cut it out from the blank using a scroll saw, band saw or your tool of choice.

I draw a leaf pattern on heavy stock paper, cut half of it out, then use that to transfer the pattern on the leaf, flipping the paper over to result in the mirror image on each side of the blank.  here you can see some of the blocks, templates and the results.

I’m also experimenting with sand shading, curved leaves, tapered leaves and other ideas – I’ll post more at a later date as I have more to show.

I’m also experimenting with a dragonfly prototype, but it’s not far enough along to show at this stage, but I think it’s very cool!