I am unable to resist amber, so much so that I hoard it, always promising myself to carve it and yet, when it comes to it, reluctant to do so for fear of ruining a beautiful piece of material.As a consequence, I have a large stock of the stuff which I bring out from time to time and gloat over like a miser. In reality, amber is a difficult material to use; leaving aside the difficulties of carving what is a very brittle substance, the main problem is due to its transparency. Whereas mammoth, say, can be stained so that the image can be seen easily, I have never, despite numerous experiments with many solvents including chloroform, which I use for staining perspex, managed to achieve a satisfactory result. I have however just thought of something else I could try, so although I am showing this in the site I don't consider it entirely finished yet.
The carving is made from Baltic amber, many millions of years old, and has a wonderful swirling cloudy pattern through it. The snails are, at the moment, stippled and stained with engravers ink but that will change just as soon as I can get back to carving again! Watch this space...
Silent Flute2 Evening Flight Strong Medicine Fishbone Harvestmoon Fungi
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Motherlode Wide Smile Eucalyptus Leaves