The other night I spent ages going through my Pender pictures. I had an idea for a piece, and I wanted to find a starfish picture as a reference. I knew I had taken a picture recently, but when a week on the island can involve taking 2000 pictures easily, finding the picture after the fact became quite a challenge.
After my first attempt to find a picture came up empty I decided to start a piece from memory. Even without a picture I was inspired to carve a starfish. It was just a bit of play as I had a new set of chisels and a piece of 2×4 laying around. A few hours of cutting and slicing and I had changed the piece of 2×4 into a recognizable starfish. A trip to the hardware store resulted in finding some handy attachments for the rotary tool too, which really helped in smoothing everything out.
Yesterday I made one more attempt to find a picture, and succeeded, finding a picture taken at Bridges Road (Pender Island, BC, Canada) back in April. It was nice to find a reference picture. Now I need to decide if I want to keep the starfish perfectly smooth, add realistic detail, or go with an artsy version. Considering the carving is from a $2 spruce 2×4, I think it is shaping up okay.
Bridges Road, Pender Island
Just for fun, here is the beach that the starfish was on. Definitely low tide.
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Art and photography by Debra Hunter.
www.debra-hunter.com
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island home 
Well done! Wood carving can be challenging but you have done a great job! P