Lathe Art, What It Is, and How To Create a Lathe Art of Your Own

Lathe Art is accomplished by starting out with a flat, not too heavy piece of wood that is, or is close to the size you want your art work to be when it is finished. You can begin with a piece of plywood, lauan, or even pegboard. It is always best if the surface is as clean as possible, as the art work is going to be glued fast to it, or sometimes even nailed.

The next thing you will need, is a subject for your painting. If you are not excited about your subject, the piece of art is not going to be exciting, either. The most important thing I can stress on the subject is that if you are just beginning, keep it as simple as possible. Maybe you like lighthouses or barns. Maybe you don't. Possibly a base ball field with bleachers would be more interesting. In any event, keep it simple. Art should make you think and feel, without taxing the brain.

When selecting the wood for your lathe art, the first thing to think about is whether you are going to paint the piece. If the finished piece will not be painted, you may need several types of wood for the project. Many different colors and textures can be found in the different types. If you need perhaps the deepest green possible in a wood color, you can get it by sanding a piece of poplar. Cherry has a pink tint to it, but mahogany and rosewood are where you will find the deep reds. Curly maple and bird's eye maple can be a wonderful little perk too! Something really bland for background? Basswood can be found with no grain to speak of. Now for a deep brown, how about some walnut. Enough said about the colors and textures. Getting back to the lathe art; If you want to paint it, you can rip a 2" x 4" into nice little strips with a halfway decent table saw, and they're oh so very available at the local lumber yard!

One way to start is to cut the lathe strips you have sliced on the table saw to length. They need to be the same length as the width of the flat piece of wood you are working on. Now is the time to sand the lathe strips. There are some very nice little disk sanders to make this job so much easier than it would have been otherwise. Start out with an 80 grit paper on each piece until they are smooth. Now go over them again, this time with a 120 grit paper to get the 80 grit scratches out. Get them all cut to length, and put them in place until the board is covered with a relatively smooth surface. Use your non-predominant hand to hold the strips still, while you do a rough sketch of your subject with a #2 pencil. If this is the part that gives you trouble, take a picture of the subject, put it right there on your workbench, and draw it in with the three basic shapes, (square) rectangular, (three sided) triangular, and (circle) ovular. If there are pencil marks that you do not need to cut on, they will sand out in a jiffy with the 120 grit paper. Don't glue anything yet. All of the pieces need to be cut first!

When you are happy with the sketch, and have all of the lines drawn clearly, take the wood strips one at a time to the scroll saw, and cut on the lines. Each time a lathe strip is cut, it should be placed back into the picture in it's correct place. Continue in this manner, until all of the lathe strips are cut. At this point, it should be easy to see the picture as you drew it.

Now it is time to start painting! If you use entirely latex or acrylic paints you can not go wrong in the mixing department. Use your brightest or most outstanding colors for the main subject. The slightly muted colors are for background. If you need to mix colors to mute them, use a little white paint, mixed with black for a grey, to tone them down. Simple. Now they are background color. Paint each of the lathe strips separately, and only one color at a time. This will help avoid the colors mixing into each other. Clean the brush between each color as you use it. Soapy water is all right to clean the brush, but paint thinner works better.

When all of the pieces to the picture are painted and dry, you can start gluing them into place. Spend a little extra on a good carpenters glue. If you don't, you will be gluing things back in place for as long as you have it. Use a half inch acid brush to glue the individual pieces as well as gluing the board they are being glued onto. Be careful not to allow any of the glue get on to the painted surface of the pieces of lathe. Cover the entire surface with wax paper to insure any leaky glue does not adhere to the next step. When everyone is nicely tucked into place, lay a larger (than the painting) flat board on top of the entire painting. Place some heavy weights on it, evenly distributed. Books work very well. Let it dry for at least a day and a half. Two days would be better.

Remove the weights that are on the lathe art work, and view the masterpiece! Now it is time for a simple frame. Using more lathe strips, sideways to the painting this time, cut to length 2" longer than the painting is tall and wide. The extra 2" will leave room for a 45 degree miter. Cut the first 45 degree miter, and hold it carefully in place while you mark the other end for the next miter. Continue in this manner on the other three sides of the painting. These can be glued in place, and held with pipe clamps, or you can glue them and then nail them in place. How about it? Is that baby beautiful!

Copyrite 2008 by Richard Tagliere

To see pictures of some of the lathe art that I have done, please visit our web site at http://www.reversepaintinglady.com/latheart.html Though I have done about a dozen paintings in this manner, I feel as though I am still beginning. I would not be so excited except that half of my work has already sold at local craft shows. That should inspire just about anyone!