Three Charles Dearing 'Optical Illusion' patterns

[Scrappile]

4 hours ago, OCtoolguy said:

An "off-subject" question....what do all of you folks do with your finished wall hangers? I've stayed away from that stuff because I don't know what I'd do with all of it. My wife would never hang any of what I've seen you talented scrollers create. I'm more into things that have some practical use. I'm just curious so have to ask. 

Wait a minute.  Wall hangers are great for covering wall damage... And as my kids say great for roasting hotdogs and marshmallows.  But really the only reason I don't hang a lot,  I worked hard putting up all that sheetrock, and priming and painting it I do not want a lot of holes in it.  Ask my wife, it has been a "bone of contention" all our 57 years of marriage.  To answer mine go in boxes and sit there.

[barb.j.enders]

I have lots of art hanging on my walls.  My sister commented on how much original are I have.  None of it is anything I did!!  Most of my stuff is in boxes heading out to some craft sales.

[Frank Pellow]

16 hours ago, OCtoolguy said:

Ok, that's you. How about everybody else? Oh, are you married Frank? My wife is "Mother No Clutter" so it's her way or the highway!

Ray, I am married and my wife, for the most part, leaves the decoration of our home up to me.  She quite likes the items that I make and, like me, is not adverse to organized clutter.  Here is a photo of one wall in our office and that wall is quite typical of what can be found throughout our house:

On that wall, we can see:

• 11 scroll-sawn items (all sawn by me) that feature rural buildings;
• One pen and ink drawing of a barn by my brother Bruce;
• A photo of the muddy street in Hearst Ontario where I grew up.

On the other walls of my office (one is all windows) we have:

• 16 framed photos;
• 9 more scroll-sawn items;
• 5 works of art by others.

And that's not counting all the art on the many shelves in the office.

So far, there is nothing on either the windows or the ceiling.

[OCtoolguy]

Thanks all. It sounds like it's more about the cutting than the displaying. 

[Frank Pellow]

20 minutes ago, OCtoolguy said:

Thanks all. It sounds like it's more about the cutting than the displaying. 

That's not true for me.

[Frank Pellow]

Getting back to the main topic of this thread, I'm continuing to cut all three of these optical illusions and am making good progress.  Here is a photo showing what I have cut so far.

There is no doubt that 'Wire Frame Rings' is the most complicated and the most interesting.  The other two will be mere companion pieces.

[Frank Pellow]

I've now finished cutting 'Wire Frame Rings'.  

 

[rjweb]

That is beautiful, excellent cutting, RJ

[TAIrving]

On 10/31/2024 at 3:54 PM, OCtoolguy said:

Ok, that's you. How about everybody else? Oh, are you married Frank? My wife is "Mother No Clutter" so it's her way or the highway!

My wife is also "No more clutter".  Occasionally she will like something I have done and it gets to stay, but otherwise...

[Frank Pellow]

I've now attached 'Wire Frame Rings' to a painted backer-board:

It looks somewhat 3-dimensional in the photo.  The real thing is even better.  I'm amazed at just how good Charles' design is!  And, I have no idea how he managed, first to envision the design and, second to capture it.

Getting the backer paint colours to align properly can be a bit tricky.  Before attaching the pattern to the panel that I was cutting, I attached clear shelf liner to the panel.  This meant that once the cutting had been completed, I could easily peal off the pattern in one piece. I then placed the pattern on the backer-board and traced faint outlines of the rings with a pencil: 

 

[don in brooklin on]

It is unbelievable.  You did a great job cutting but the background really makes it special.

 

[barb.j.enders]

WOW Frank.  That is an amazing piece.  I have seen it with just a black background but the colours really make it stand out.

[Frank Pellow]

Except for the frame, I've now completed the 'Sphere' companion piece.  It was quite easy to cut and the 3D effect is not nearly as good as with 'Wire Frame Rings' but, still, I quite like it.

Here is a photo of the two completed illusions:

[Frank Pellow]

To my surprise. 'Illusion' is harder and more time-consuming to cut than was 'Wire Frame Rings'.  I've now spent about the same amount of time on the former than I did on the latter and, as you can see, a lot of cutting remains to be done:

                   

'Illusion' contains a deceptive number of very small bits to be cut out,

Edited November 11, 2024 by Frank Pellow

[Mike Crosa]

All I can say is WOW!

[Frank Pellow]

I've made a set of Rosseter-Pellow frames for these panels.  I've shown several scroll-saw projects here at Scrollsaw Village where I have made simple (non 45-degree angle) frames - a style used by my grandfather, Frank Rosseter, at least 100 years ago and one that he taught me about 70 years ago.  I call those frames 'Rosseter-Pellow' frames.

 

I made the frames out of a very old and straight Pine plank that has been lying around for years waiting to be used on project such as this.  The wonderful grain of the pine shows through on the stain that I applied to the frames.  I made to stain by mixing Americana Staining  Antiquing medium half and half with the same acrylic paint that I used on the backer-boards.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2024 by Frank Pellow

[Frank Pellow]

COMPLETED

The project has now been completed.

Here is a photo of 'Sphere', 'Wire Framed Rings' and 'Illusion":

I enjoyed working on this and I like the outcome so much that I'm going to keep these and hang them in my bedroom. 

Edited November 24, 2024 by Frank Pellow

[Scrappile]

Well done!

[Gonzo]

Very cool and impressive! What are the pattern sizes?

Edited November 15, 2024 by Gonzo

[Frank Pellow]

4 hours ago, Gonzo said:

Very cool and impressive! What are the pattern sizes?

Thanks.

I printed the patterns as 26 centimetres by 26 centlimetres (or a little more than 10 inches by 10 inches for those of you who prefer Imperial measurements).

Edited November 15, 2024 by Frank Pellow

[Peter N White]

Very well done.

[meflick]

Nice work as always Frank.  Should look great on your wall.  I confess, I'm an imperial girl myself. They tried to introduce the metric system to us many years ago here in the US when I was young but I'm afraid I never caught on. 

[Frank Pellow]

3 hours ago, meflick said:

Nice work as always Frank.  Should look great on your wall.  I confess, I'm an imperial girl myself. They tried to introduce the metric system to us many years ago here in the US when I was young but I'm afraid I never caught on. 

Thanks.

As to Imperial vs Metric, although I can work with fractions, I prefer not to.  It's much easier when I'm drafting plans to use Metric and, thus, avoid calculations with fractions.

[Frank Pellow]

I've shown the 'Wire Frame Rings' illusion to several people and everyone seems to be quite intrigued by it.  The other two pieces get little attention.

I've noted more interest in 'Wire Frame Rings' than just about any scroll-saw work that I have ever done (and I've done a LOT).  It's popular enough that I decided to make at least two more.  The original was done using 6mm thick  Baltic Birch plywood.  This time, I'm using 3mm thick plywood and stack-cutting them.

 

[Frank Pellow]

FURTHER EXPERIMENTS

I've almost finished sawing the two stacked-cut 'Wire Framed Rings' panels mentioned above and I got to thinking about how these might look when backed with glass.  Here is a photo of portion of the panel placed in front of a square of coloured glass.

I LIKE IT!  The delicate framework shows up much more than it does with a wood backing.  But I do think that the three-dimensional illusion is lessened.

The two panels that I am working with right now are destined to be backed much like the first one, but I will make at least two more and back them with glass.