Project #9 begins
In other news, after I routed and glued Saturday, I decided to get to gluing patterns to material for project #9, the fuchsia. I bought pink mussel, purpleheart that has, after several months in the garage, stayed purple, and some Rhodonite reconstituted stone. I hadn’t really thought about how I was going to use them yet, and wasn’t all that up on fuschia coloration, so I took a trip into the house to google some pictures. Then I had choices to make.
The rhodonite and purpleheart looked good together. The pink mussel and the purpleheart looked good together. The rhodonite and pink mussel not so much, and the mussel was much more subtle in coloring than the rhodonite. I had a picture of a fuchsia that was more pink and light pink, and thought that might look nice in a real subtle inlay at some point, though it would lack in verisimilitude. I wanted verisimilitude this time out.
I decided to go with the rhodonite and purpleheart for the flowers and buds, and had planned all along to use paua for the plant stems, curved strips for the circular bit, and I still had a few pieces for the parts connecting to the flowers. That leaves me but one piece of paua in my stash. I may have to check out eBay for more. I love the look of paua, but it is hard to work with—riddled with worm holes, at least the batch I got was.
v That left me with a decision to make. With what was I going to do the bits that come out of the open flower? I looked again at the pink mussel, and had a piece with some nice stripes in it. My plan all along was to cut that out as one piece and then engrave the separate pieces, but depending on how the figure works out, maybe the suggestion will be enough. We shall see.
The curved strips will be fit in as appropriate once the main body of the piece is assembled. I figure it’s free-form anyway, and I don’t want to paint myself in a corner with it by starting with it. So this next project will have 3 types of material, one totally new to me; engraving, which I haven’t tried yet; and some challenging routing. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. But I’m going to try anyway.
