Wider’s interesting Basket Case picture in the gallery today is pure pyrography with no colouring. In most basket weave illusion decorations on turned items a pattern is created by colouring in some of the rectangles. Lincoln Seitzman and David Nittman are the best known early turners that developed the idea and Harvey Meyer in the USA currently specialises in this form of decoration – many of his pieces can be seen on the internet and he has an excellent demo, in 2 parts, on YouTube that shows you exactly how to create the effect. See:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A4UI_7OYDo. Alternatively wait until his demonstrations at next year's AWGB Symposium !
My first attempt a couple of weeks ago is shown below. Even for such a small item, 75mm in diameter with 60 segments around the perimeter and 21 horizontal beads, the work is quite time consuming. I understand that Harvey, who has so much experience in this field, can still take up to 60hrs to decorate his larger vessels; it is very repetitive work and needs a lot of patience!
