There’s a large knotted spot on the centre trunk which is beyond chiselling flat, so the space for the musical notation scrolling down was limited.
Still, with the bark off, the nice clean wood gave a great surface to work on:
The scroll didn’t take too much doing, just clearing away the background and shaping the folds.
The notes and staves were drawn on; the notes had to be aesthetically pleasing and easily seen, so I didn’t space them strictly according to the time or rhythm of the song. Can anyone work out the secret tune?!!!
With this finished, I could move on to the notes on the guitarist’s tree:
I lined out the staves next to the arm too.
The book looked a bit bare and needed something on the cover; I thought about words that would work as a title, but settled on the simple symbol of a heart. The subjects of the carving all pointed towards love ~ a love of music, a love of books, a love of family, environment and animals ~ so a heart represented that perfectly.
So, all three trunks together look something like this:
Spare a thought for the owner of these trees, Ali, who (when she returns from work each day) only ever sees her carvings like this:
Don’t worry Ali, they’ll soon be oiled!!