Signs of life

[KKHK]

As spring finally comes along, a somewhat more energetic feeling returns to be a bit more creatively.


Moss Agate


Got some Indonesian Blue Amber.....

Started with those chips to get a feel for the material,.... then set out to carve some coral


......Before making amber my Easter project.
Tried the same basic design on two very different material, and the outcome is quite different.
Done by now, save the need for more clean-up.
Still trying to figure that one out.
From the beginning,....


.... to the finish-line (for now)


And the second project that went alongside
Sodalite


To the finish

The experiment is nearly done. Need to figure out how to clean them up. Fascit: While very heat-sensitive, still reasonable to work with once it comes to detailing. Does allow giving form, but with my way of sanding looses edges very quickly and everything is round. Bought it for its purported blue colour, something that is there, but not at the extend to my liking. So, in the end, a very nice material to experiment and get experience with amber, at an affordable price.


Not as blue as I would have liked it.


Thanks for looking, Kurt

[crazy8s]

Great to see the progression really liked the coral flower.

[PinkDiamond]

I can't tell you how delighted I am to see more carvings from you Kurt! I love the 4 leaf clover, especially since I find them all the time and have quite a collection of them, as well as a small collection of 5 and even 6 leaf clovers. Is it translucent at all? It appears to be packed so full of moss that it might not be very translucent at all. Way cool. How big is it?

I've never seen blue amber before except in ads where I wondered if the color was enhanced, and I was going to ask if there's any blue in it since it appears golden brown in the first set of pics. But I love the one that looks like a snail. If I carved that I would be sending it to my friend Katrine in Scotland who keeps snails/slugs as pets. She even has a small house for them complete with furniture for them to lounge on.

The coral flower is gorgeous, and I would never have thought to do that, much less had the guts to carve into it. Beautiful!

As for the amber and sodalite carvings, I have to say that in amber the image looks a bit like those aliens called grays, but in sodalite the same basic carving has an Oriental look. Very interesting!

They're all great and in the bottom pics you can see bit of blue in the amber. Great job, and thanks so much for sharing them with us.

[KKHK]

Thank you for the feedback, highly appreciated.

Yeah, the hands can be seen better on the Sodalite as I'm more confident on the compactness of the material.
I'm too afraid that something would break on the amber if I would go deeper.
On the other hand, at hand the amber projects a stronger picture when it comes to outlines.
The head-cloth turned out better on the Sodalite, yet the overall face seems younger and ore agreeable (to me) on the amber.
Both have their strengths, and weaknesses.

As for the blue colour: Yes I'm a bit disappointed. It seems that the thicker the material is, the stronger the reflection (which should not be the case as it is said that the colour is an interaction with the surface, not from within). But nowhere even close to the clear, clean blue that we always see in pictures. Maybe Mexican and/or Puerto Rico material is different, but not this one.

5 or even 6 leaf clover? Never seen those.
Yes, the moss is very tightly packed, so hardly any light passes through. Here is a better picture.

[Rockranger1]

Sweet, but it sure does lose its blue color.

[KKHK]

Which one?

The Sodalite?

The amber's colour is much weaker than expected.

[Rockranger1]

Which one?

The Sodalite?

The amber's colour is much weaker than expected.

Your correct, the Amber.

[PinkDiamond]

Right before I gave birth to my daughter back in the 70's I was sitting in the grass at a club/restaurant called Hollymead in Virginia, where my husband was the manager, and noticed I was sitting in a patch of 4 leaf clovers so I began collecting them. Then I found a few 5 leaf clovers and one or two 6 leaf clovers, and I pressed them between 2 layers of clear Contac paper, and laid it over the lampshade in my daughter's room. I still have it somewhere, but can't find it of course.

A few years ago I found another patch of 4, 5 and 6 leaf clovers right here on the property, and this time I had a camera so I took a few shots of them. The 6 leaf clover is a bit hard to make out the individual leafs, but you can see they're there, and the individual 5 leaf clover leafs are perfectly placed for viewing.

The first shot was taken of another one I found years before.

These all came from the patch of clover, which of course was all in an area of 3 leaf clovers.

While collecting them back in the 70's I thought, 'oh what luck to find these. Things will go well for us.' But when I went into labor on a Saturday night, the jerk who owned Hollymead fired my husband for being at the hospital with me instead of at work; and this man called himself a friend. NOT! Anyway, don't look to 4 leaf or any other clover for your luck.

Love the closeup of it. Is it small enough to be made into a pendant, or large enough to be a paperweight?

[kjsspot]

Geez, what a JERK!!

[KKHK]

Waking up to wake up my daughter (for school) and wifey for work, had a quick look at messages on my phone. Saw Kjsspot's message and wondered what I had done to be called that way. Went back to bed with that nagging feeling, only to ask Kjsspot as soon as finally getting up myself.

All that, before reading Pinks message and finally realizing whats going on..........

Sorry to hear bout all the troubles after finding those purporting "lucky" clovers.

Its a pendant like always, just over an inch at its longest.