New Work from Forest Treasures - week ending June 25, 2011

I decided to record some images of a complete and fairly typical week's output for my Market Stall sales at the Port Douglas market. At this time of year, sales are strong, so my weekly output has to remain as high as possible to keep the market stall fed.

Forest Treasures stirrers - "Pickled Jane" and "Bev" - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures stirrers - the paddle, wok stirrer, the flat spat and the classic stirrer - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures salad servers - large servers in Queensland black walnut and acacia cedar - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures salad servers - small servers in Queensland black walnut and figured blackbean - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures salad servers - small servers in two-tone raintree and acacia cedar - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures muddlers - muddler mojito - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures bowl - serving or salad bowl in black wattle - by Bob Gilmour.

Forest Treasures bowl - serving or salad bowl in black wattle - by Bob Gilmour.

http://www.foresttreasures.com

http://www.foresttreasures.etsy.com

The Port Douglas Markets - Forest Treasures - June 26, 2011

Yesterday was yet another great day in my market stall in Port Douglas. It was the first week of school holidays ... which run over the next month staggered across the states of Australia. This time signifies a big influx of visitors to the Cairns and far North Queensland area ... on top of our normal seasonal rise of Australian and international visitors.

It was all about utensils in the most part. I had good sales right across my range of cooking stirrers and a few pairs of premium salad servers. Several regular customers from New South Wales and Victoria visited and stocked up on gifts to take home and send overseas.

On top of a great sales day, the conditions were wonderful also. Although it looked a bit like rain early, the day cleared away to mild near-perfect weather ... winter in the tropics ... gotta love it.

I'm carrying thoughts constantly at present of resin and metal casting ... and, yesterday provided at a few more interesting pieces to the story. My potter friend Shireen gave me some clues to picking up a second-hand kiln to post-cure my resin and Alan, "The Brooch Man", provided a very handy tip on acrylic lacquer coating of metals, notably pewter ... information I'll definitely be using down the track when I get that far.

Next weekend sees some of the southern states join in on school holidays, so I expect another great result then. In the meantime, it's back into the workshop creating stock ... Forest Treasures.

http://www.foresttreasures.com

http://www.foresttreasures.etsy.com

Small Serving Dish in Quarter-sawn Australian Silky Oak by Bob Gilmour

I recently bought some perfectly quarter-saw northern silky oak - Cardwellia sublimis - from one of my timber suppliers. My guess it was originally cut as guitar wood but couldn't find a market so finished up as cabinet timber. I already had an order for three pairs of salad servers in figured silky oak, so this was perfect.

I created this small dish from a left over. The wood was only 25 mm (1 inch) thick so there wasn't a lot of scope to go too big.

The dimensions are 25 cm (10") x 9.5 cm (3.7") x 2.5 cm (1").

The wood is extremely highly bar-figured and has nice warm colour with pink tonings. I opted for a functional finish, so this dish can be used for serving or presenting food on. The finish is fine with 'wet' food items and the dish can be washed with water and normal detergent … please keep it out of the dishwasher, though. The finish is the same as that which I apply to my cooking utensils, and is quite robust.

I suspect that most people would opt to keep this piece as a small display item due to the unique appearance of the highly figured wood.

This item is available for purchase @ Forest Treasures on Esty ...

http://www.etsy.com/listing/76510582/small-serving-dish-in-highly-figured?ref=pr_shop

For news of new work and exhibition dates, please LIKE my facebook page for Gilmour Artforms ...

http://www.facebook.com/gilmourartforms

Salad Servers by Bob Gilmour

Salad Servers waiting to be signed

I've made 6 pairs of salad servers this week to replace stock I sold last week in my stall at the Port Douglas markets. they are currently on my packing bench waiting to be signed off and packed for market.