The Jah Russ Library › The Studio
I draw it first, then burn it into the wood by hand. Portraits, crests, animals, names, lines that mattered to somebody. Every piece here is an original, and every one was made for a particular person or a particular reason.
A sea turtle, a little gold, and the patience it takes to keep going.
Sea turtles don't fight the water. They move with it, and they still get where they're going. That's what I wanted in this one. The turtle sits under a circle of light, and the center of the shell is gold leaf, the one spot on the board that catches light differently.
Wings of the Dawn. A dove, a heart, and gold leaf where the sun comes up.
The title means Wings of the Dawn. The dove is opening up at first light, with the sun behind its head in gold leaf and a heart where its chest would be. Everything around it mirrors left to right, so the whole board sits balanced.
A man, a lantern, and a lot of dark around him.
Most of this panel is burned almost black. The man and his lantern are what's left of the mahogany, so the light in the piece is really just the wood I didn't touch. The smoke runs up the whole right side of the board.
A lion, a full moon, and everything else burned down to dark.
This is one of the heaviest pieces I've done. The moon is bare basswood, and almost everything else is burned to deep char, so the lion is standing in the only light there is.
Every feather is its own pass.
Every feather on this owl is a separate pass with the pen. The oak leaves and acorns started out as a border, and then they grew into the piece instead of sitting around it. The basswood still has its live edge.
The horse is the part I didn't burn.
I burned the background solid and left the horse as bare wood. Everything you see of him is what I didn't touch. The hard edge behind him isn't what a stable looks like. It's how the light was falling.
Just the line. No shading.
Two horses, close together, manes running into each other. This one is all line on basswood, no shading at all. Without shading there's nothing to hide behind. If a line is off, you see it.
Her portrait, and a note in her own language.
Hibiscus and palm around her, and a note in Spanish: eres arte, luz y energía. Gracias por ser exactamente como eres. You are art, light and energy. Thank you for being exactly who you are.
A birthday commission.
Somebody wanted a birthday to last longer than a day. Butterflies, purple hibiscus, and the lettering worked into the drawing instead of stuck underneath it.
Her name, her pose, and a line she lives by.
She brought the words: walk in love, from Ephesians 5:2. The halo behind her was her idea too, and it ended up holding the whole piece together.
Red hibiscus on warm bamboo, and room left for a name.
Bamboo takes color differently than basswood. The red in these hibiscus came up softer than it would have, and I liked that. There's room at the bottom for a name.
Nothing here is priced on the page, because no two pieces are the same. Size, wood, subject and the hours it takes all move the number. As a rough frame, most pieces land between $400 and $900, shipping included. Tell me what you have in mind and I will give you a figure before you commit to anything.
How it goes: you tell me the subject, I come back with a drawing, and nothing is agreed until you have seen it. Once the burning starts the drawing is fixed, because wood does not take an eraser. Pieces ship worldwide from Puerto Plata, or I can hand it to you here.