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Did the Vikings build snowmen?

Here’s my answer made from Colorado aspen.  6″ tall

Merryl has been using milk paint on platters and fruit for most of her career as a woodturner.  Even when other turners became more and more flamboyant, she stayed with her restrained shapes and quiet colors.   She is best known among symposium attendees for her use of milk paint finishes.   In November, the Center for Art in Wood will present a retrospective of her work.

In honor of Merryl, I ventured into some unknown dimensions.

I haven’t made platters this large (13″ diameter) before, so scaling up the surface design to the bigger surface area was challenging for me.  I also wanted to explore ways of using milk paint as a finish.   I chose to layer 5 colors of milk paint in a very free way, with big brushes, while the layers were still wet.  I had burned and carved some areas of texture before painting.  Often, sanding back through the layers works well.  This time, however, I wanted to stay with manipulating the texture of the wet paint, by lifting off some of it.  I liked that effect well enough to forego sanding back through the layers.