GET INLAID

I had made this original drawing 400% larger than the original clipart. Logic would dictate, then, that when I was done with the tracing I would shrink it down to 25%. But I started thinking that those pieces would be very small to work with, so I shrunk it only to 35% and was a lot happier with the size. Except at that size, I couldn’t get the entirely of the pointy bits on a single piece of MOP as I’d planned. I could at 25%. Such a dilemma.

I decided to run both sizes, and check to see if I had enough of the donkey’s ear MOP abalam to cover the bigger size. If I didn’t, I’d go smaller.

I did have plenty of the abalam. But then I decided that I’d do the design twice, once in each size. Why not? It’s not like I can’t use the practice.

I realized that while this is a simpler design than the poppy, it isn’t, in fact, as simple as the single-cavity routing I’d need to do on the art deco one. Sometimes I don’t think these things all the way through. I should try that more often, instead doing my usual "measure twice, cut once, cuss a blue streak" manner. But I am visualizing routing excellence even now. It’s going to happen, I just know it!

After work yesterday, then, I glued patterns to shell in the dueling sizes, and they’re ready for sawing as soon as I’m ready to saw.

After that I worked on the art deco drawing. The original for this was a stencil design, actually, from a stencil company in England that does great stuff.  I’ve used their stencils in my dining room and my bedroom.  When I went looking for designs, I thought of stencils, because they’re already in a format very conducive to inlay. I just have to adjust the lines between the parts. The poppy design (the abandoned project #3) was also originally a stencil. In any case, stencils are very easy to trace, and I only had to do 2 copies of this one. The face will be tricky, but very cool if I can pull it off. And working with wood will be a new challenge.

I have found a supplier of shell via eBay that tends to give me good prices. I won 3 lots of larger shell pieces, some green abalone, MOP, and gold MOP. I will use the gold MOP in the sun. I originally thought to do her body in the MOP, but now that I have the wood, I think I’m going to try that. (Did I just say I have wood for her body? I do believe I did.)

I’m feeling that can-do spirit with these projects, despite the letdown of the last one. It’s only a matter of time and patience. Like anything else.