There has been a lovely piece of locust sitting in my shop staring at me for awhile now and it finally revealed itself as a lion head just before the holidays.

First, had my hubby stretch his bandsaw skills to give me the foundation.

Then I started on building the face and deciding how to tie it into the wood.

Next came multiple batches of dreads and dry fitting. I think I created 4 batches in the end, thinking each time that I would most certainly have enough and being wrong.

Once I had enough dreads and was happy with placement, I started gluing and felting them in place. I then hung it for the first time and decided it was too heavy on the bottom left. Also realized I forgot ears!

I moved some of the longer dreads up to thin that section out and added in the ears and this is the final product. He has a lion king kind of vibe to him that I really dig!

Never one to waste wood, I took the bark cut off from the original locust slab and created a cute little owl with him. I call him Night Terror. Sorry I don’t have any in progress shots of this one.