I’m looking for some suggestions. I’ve started surface carving on some of my bowls and vessels. Took a class from Dixie Biggs, great instructor. Now I’m coming to the hard part the finishing. I have a wild cherry bowl, this is my practice piece, and I carved leaves and it’s about done. The ”back ground” behind the leave is heavily textured and I want to stain or paint it dark so the leave stand out. Question would you use stain or paint. Most of the wood is fairly tight but wild cherry also has the nasty habit of having sections of open tubes, I know not the technical term, that will go through a piece. I’m open to suggestions. I can post a picture if that would help.

Any thoughts about Waterlox? Good experiences? Any bad results? Please share them here.