Local artist makes McDavid pictures with wood and a magnifying glass
By baggedmilk
5 years agoI was doing my usual cruise for news this morning when I found this great story about Norman Shewchuk, a Mundare resident that has been making really cool McDavid artwork using wood and a magnifying glass.
Over on the NHL’s main site, they profiled Norman Shewchuk, a 52-year-old artist that has been burning truly awesome Connor McDavid portraits into wood using nothing more than a piece of wood and a magnifying glass. If you’re anything like me, you probably used a magnifying glass to burn ants or something when you were a kid, but that likely stopped when you realized you had absolutely no skills aside from destruction. Not only did Mr. Shewchuk keep using a magnifying glass to burn things, he actually turned it into an artform that I definitely thought was worth sharing.
According to the profile, Mr. Shewchuk starts each project by finding a picture of the subject he’s looking to do and carefully traces it onto a piece of wood. From there, he has to wait until the conditions are perfect and the sun is in just the right place before he starts his work.
“You have to wait for the sun to get up high enough, because if the sun is too low you just make a messy job. You want to get the sun up nice and high so you get the fine lines in. It’s a very long, long process. It’s all burnt with a magnifying glass and the sun. I can only do it when it is warm outside and the sun is out.”
Not only does the artwork speak for itself, but I should also mention that Mr. Shewchuk is a quadriplegic with limited use of his hands after suffering a hockey injury when he was only 16 years old, which makes these masterpieces all the more impressive. In total, he put in 70 hours worth of work on the Connor image shown above and that requires the kind of patience and attention to detail that I’m not sure many of us have. Frankly, my mind was blown when I saw them and the fact that he does it all with only a magnifying glass is truly remarkable.
Being an Oilers fan himself, Mr. Shewchuk has already completed a couple of portraits of Connor McDavid with the ultimate goal of having the captain sign one of the pieces. When asked why the only likenesses he’s done so far are of Connor McDavid, Mr. Shewchuk had the perfect answer.
“I think, especially for the pressure that he’s been under, that he’s a class act. [He’s] just an amazing kid for the pressure he’s been under through his whole life.”
Well said, sir.
Personally, when I read this story I thought it was really cool and I also thought that it was something that more people needed to know about so I hope you guys got a kick out of seeing what Mr. Shewchuk can do. On this side of the screen, my drawing skills seem to have stopped developing when I was a kid so I’m always blown away by people with this level of artistry. Back in high school, I made a shelf shop class and burned a short note into it that is barely legible so seeing this level of detail is something else entirely. Here’s hoping that posting his story on our site will help him get one step closer to having Connor sign one of these beauties. Gord knows I’m pulling for him.
Check out some of the other pieces he’s done, courtesy of his Twitter account:
Source: NHL, Official League Website, 7/7/2018 – 11:00 am MST
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