Dixie Biggs
October 4-8
This course offers an immersion in embellishment techniques for turned forms—relief carving, texturing, and coloring—that can also give visual impact to furniture and furnishings. Dixie shares her extensive expertise, providing step-by-step guidance in relief carving with micro-motor rotary power carvers, wood burning for texture and detail, and adding color with acrylic paints through a dry-brush technique. At first, students develop tool control by practicing relief-carving, from layout and bit selection to finish detailing, on sample discs and blocks. They then move on to decorate turned vessels, bowls, platters, or other turned objects that they have brought with them, dried and ready to carve.
No previous turning, power carving, or painting experience is necessary. The focus is decorative techniques that are done off the lathe. Still, students who are experienced turners may choose to turn new pieces to decorate during the course.
Dixie Biggs has been a full-time studio woodturner/artist since 1989. With a degree in agriculture and a love of gardening, she often incorporates botanical themes into her work and is best known for meticulously-carved, “leaf wrapped” vessels. Dixie has exhibited in such notable venues as the Smithsonian Craft Show, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, and the American Craft Expo. She is based in Gainesville, FL, and her pieces may be found in public and private collections worldwide. Dixie teaches at craft schools, symposia, and clubs across the country and has been featured in Woodturning magazine, among other publications. For more on Dixie’s work, visit dixiebiggs.com.
Open to all.
