Cedar: Straight Grain and Charred Blackness

Two treatments of cedar wood juxtaposed. Untreated cedar is used indoors: the color is a warm pale yellow-white, with extremely fine and parallel straight grain, clear differences in shade between springwood and summerwood. The surface is only planed, not varnished, so the texture of the growth rings can be felt, and it emits the natural scent of wood. The other type is cedar with a surface carbonization treatment, used semi-outdoors: the surface is burned deep black, the carbon layer has cracked, scaly texture, reflecting faint light with fine, silvery-gray highlights, and the texture is rough and prone to shedding powder. Both are the same type of wood, but completely different due to the treatment. They are adjacent in the picture, creating a strong contrast. Avoid: using stained imitations, depicting the carbonized layer as uniformly smooth, using other types of wood, varnishing the untreated cedar.

Translated from Chinese by AI.

一組杉木的兩種處理並置。未經處理的杉木用在室內:顏色是溫暖的淺黃白,直紋極為細密而平行,春材與夏材的深淺差異明顯,表面只刨光不上漆,可以摸出年輪的凹凸,散發著木材本身的氣味。另一種是經過表面炭化處理的杉木,用在半戶外:表面被燒成深黑,炭層有龜裂的鱗片狀紋理,反射微弱的光時呈現細碎的銀灰高光,質地粗糙易掉粉。兩者是同一種木材,只因處理不同而完全不同。它們在畫面中相鄰,對比強烈。避免:使用染色的仿製品、把炭化層畫成均勻平滑、使用其他種類的木材、把未處理的杉木上漆。