custom

Custom Portraits

These portraits were all designed by myself. With a quality picture, and the help of my computer, I can create a pattern. Custom portraits are cut from 1/8 inch highest quality Oak plywood. The first one I designed was of my son, pictured below.

Creating a pattern from a picture is very challenging. Creating a pattern can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours using my computer. The pattern is then printed onto paper, and applied to the wood using adhesive spray. Then the portrait is cut, sanded and sprayed with a gloss finish. The whole process of cutting and sanding can vary in time, depending on how many inside cuts there are. Inside cuts are areas like the eyes, where the blade has to be threaded through a drilled hole. For example, the fireman with the angel portrait(on my patriotic page) will have over 50 drilled holes. The more inside cuts a picture has increases the amount of time to cut the picture out, and thus increase the time needed to sand the picture. The fireman with the angel takes me at least 2 hours to just sand. Currently I use black felt for the background, a black mat and a wooden frame. I can also cut out an unframed portrait which you could take to your local professional shop and have it framed and matted.

A wooden portrait makes a great unique gift that will last forever. It is a very rewarding experience to turn a plain piece of wood into something that can be cherished.