I made a hot air balloon that floats!
The balloon is a cottonwood hollowform, colored with dyes. The basket is black palm wood. The base is also colored cottonwood.
The base supports a vertical pole, and the balloon has a tube running through its middle. The balloon just slides onto the pole.
I put strong magnets in the basket and the base, and that’s what makes it float.
I’ve been enjoying making hollow forms recently. This is just a sampling of some of the recent ones.
Beetle-Kill Pine:
Maple, with a bit of spalting on the top:
Aspen:
Cottonwood:
Another cottonwood form. I like how layering various colors of dye brings out the figure in cottonwood.
These are great examples of why I love to turn cottonwood. The figure is just fantasitc.
The larger bowl is about 11″ diameter. 
This smaller one is about 4″.
I just love the figure that you sometimes find in Cottonwood. I decided to use some dye on this piece to bring out that figure. The result has hints of green, yellow, blue and red, and really highlights the figure in the grain on one half of this bowl.
The bowl is 12″ diameter and 2″ tall.
$95 Sold
Bowl from native Colorado Cottonwood. Lichtenberg fractal patterns burned around the rim.
The bowl is 10 1/2″ diameter.
This tree was rescued from a tree-trimer’s “free firewood” pile.
$75 Sold
