I watched a online wood turning demonstration of a lady who turned a bowl to 1.5mm thick wall she then showed how she went about piecing it in a pattern, some of it she left solid and painted it with flowers, during the demonstration someone asked if she had thought about doing a tree, this is my idea of that tree.

This tree is made in 3 parts I first turned the outer branches so it was like turning a large cup, the top of the wall was about 3mm thick and it was after I had started doing the piercing that I realised how thick the lower part of the wall was and the bottom, by then it was too late to change however in the end it all worked out well, next I turned the tree trunk not knowing what I would do I left the top and bottom parts big, I had always wondered if I could do an inner and an outer to the branches, only one thing to do, try it, I set about turning a long narrow cup and again I ended up with it too thick in the bottom, it was when I was doing the sculpturing after I had done the piecing that I was pleased I had that thickness, as I have never done this before it was all trial and error I did constantly think don't rush there was no time limit, eventually I glued the outer branches to the trunk I was then able to continue the sculpturing, I am still able to return the whole piece to the wood lathe which I had done so I could drill right through the trunk and cut a small recess for

the inner branches to sit in, it was about this time I decided to put a small LED light in the top of the trunk so I went shopping for a light, the root ball was another experiment that just grew (pun intended) and turned out as good as I could hope for, I did not want to leave the trunk plain but also did not want to sculpture it, I had seen a pyrogrophy pattern I liked and wanted to try making the wire nib for the pen, because of my previous experiments I have had a lot of luck with one, the whole pattern I am so happy about, it was a mistake that I put some gold paste on the trunk as I coloured the branches but when I saw the look of the gold over the pyrogrophy I put the idea of sanding it off away and continued the gold over the whole trunk, I have purposely left some of the black lines showing, the root ball is ebonised then the whole tree is lacquered using a rattle can.

This tree stands 250mm tall and the wood is rimu.