Hydrangea Wall Art

Hey everyone! I finally received my forge on Monday night! I just wanted to share my 1st official project (and 2nd cut after the Founder’s ruler). There was quite a bit of trial and error in order to get the engravings to process within the cloud as this piece is of a decent size (~10"x16"). It’s cut/engraved on a single piece of Proofgrade medium maple plywood.

I used the dark graphic setting to engrave the core flower shape. It was quite a tedious and long process. All-in this took approximately 5 hours of laser time. That does not count the file prep and troubleshooting. Just actual time that the laser was firing. Hopefully I can get that time down as I fine-tune manual settings.

The piece was inspired by my recent trip to Sao Miguel island in the Azores (Portugal). The entire island is literally covered with wild hydrangeas that are in various states of bloom all year long. Google it! Better yet…visit! I actually had to delay my Glowforge delivery by a couple days–I was in the Azores when the tracking information was sent.

FYI: The main flower image was purchased from Shutterstock. It was a vector image but I had to rasterize for the engrave since it was not built with lasering in mind. The rest of the design (patterned embellishments, frame) was created from scratch in Illustrator.

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Stunning first project! You are on the way to great things.

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I just noticed the geometric background texture on the leaves. Pretty cool!

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Oooh! Lovely! :grinning:

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So nice tmarch86! I love the subtle patterns in the leaves. You’re off to a great start, keep the projects coming.

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This is an impressive second print! Great way to keep a memory alive. Can’t wait to see what you make next!

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I love hydrangeas! Beautiful artwork to display!