Resurrection

A few weeks, before the harvest festival of Pongal, I was in Sydney, clearing the compound of garden debris. Buried under a mound of dried leaves were some mangled branches and the trunk of a young tree , about 8 years old as inferred from its annular rings. The leaves were quickly carted away to generate some free garden space

As regards the trunk and branches, the idea originally was to cut these to pieces with a hacksaw and dump the bits into the Council's tub meant for disposing garden waste. That would have been mulched into bits and finally strewn somewhere.

But while sawing, I observed that the timbre of the timber, indicated that the wood is good and hard and that made me change lanes in my thinking. Karthik suggested to retain the log as a show piece and Preethi said that the shape is that of a Didgeridoo and mentioned that it could be painted as such.

Aboriginal mask

I decided to add some value to the log by painting it as in a Didgeridoo, considering the shape and size. It was about 5 feet long. The Didge, as it is called, is an aboriginal wind-musical instrument, honed out of termite eaten hollow tree trunks.  I cut this solid trunk and the branches into suitably sized pieces, removed the bark, chipped off the nodes and gritty  bumps,  and smoothened the surface with sand paper. Everything was manually done. Little did I realize that the apparently cylindrical surface was uneven, undulating and the grains could make painting difficult

I tried out some sketches, but was inspired when I saw a set of the colored masks of one of the native aboriginal tribals.  I gave the log a base coat, dried it, then sketched the masks and painted them using water-based and oil-based colors. Although this one is solid and does not produce any music, the shape is that of a Didgeridoo. The words DJIRRI NYURRA mean GOOD DAY in Tjapukai, which is one of the 250 odd aboriginal languages from as many tribes in Australia

First four logs

And that's what you have here. It was ready on the day after Pongal and handed over.

Deer 

Lioness

LLioness           

Lioness

ess

Lion

Supercat

Cockatiel

Three logs

Koala

Gilli and dandas

Tiger Cub

Giraffe

The humble log of wood has been given a pride of place in someone's home as a curio. It has been resurrected from garden debris to home decor. I have since painted ten of them with different themes reflected by the variety of Australian flora and fauna

In summary, from garden debris, (buried under a mound of dried leaves in the form of broken trunk and mangled branches) to drawing room home decor, these logs have been treated and have journeyed through de-barking,  sawing to size, timber fill, sanding and polish, base primer coat and sealant with water and oil colors, Aussie theme sketching, painting and varnishing, all manually done by an amateur.

What was originally intended to be mulched and strewn somewhere has been resurrected and given a pride of place in drawing rooms at the homes of friends