
Turtle doves pair for life - so I think they are beautiful birds to seek inspiration from when designing something as a wedding gift. The wedding of my friends Hannah and Calum gave me an opportunity to conduct some lasercutting experiments at the fantastic Famous Grouse Ideas Centre here in Perth using a tutle dove theme. The design incorporated the names of the couple into the love heart shape formed out of their two wings. I cut out two versions of the design. The first was from recycled plywood (sourced from Glasgow Wood Recycling). I liked the fact the wood was not perfect - hence the flaw in the tail.

You can see that I created the design but cutting out the two doves, and then 'rasterising' into it. This means I used the laser to cut down into the plywood - it removes the top layer and creates a sunken area about 1mm down. I tinted the sunken or rasterised areas in a silver paint, then rollered acyrlic paint over it - this created a very smooth white coating. The contrast between the white upper layer and the dark silver sunken areas is visually effective.
