To cut, or not ????

[christopherl1234]

I'm going with JADE

[asianfire]

   Love the guesses and the stubbornness with which we hold on to convention. I think Shain already knows and Casey gave another important hint:  Fibers, and extremely tightly packed at that (hence the easy carving).

Lets give one more, before confirming the ID in the morning (US time):

The colors that I saw during  the sanding and give this an overal metallic look (hence the silvery look, when there is none);
"Midnight Blue, Ink Blue and remember when you look into a slow moving creek with sun overhead, and look at dark algee, that would be the other main color.

[pete]

Well done Kurt.
Sometimes in those situations I just put it aside and move on to the next. Often it's easier to start again rather than try to fix something that may not be fixable.
Also I've been studying some anatomical books recently to gain a little more insight into natural forms.
As to the material, I'll defer.

[3rdRockFromTheFun]

Fibers...    Not wood...    Africa... 

Well all I can think of is Tiger's/Hawk Eye or Tiger Iron. I may have to go study African minerals... 

[Freeform]

yay Frank!!!!       

[3rdRockFromTheFun]

Well I'll be darned... 

[skystone]

Hi Kurt I think you have a good start. The beak looks pretty good (I'm assuming it's an eagle from the hooked beak). You are correct in the eye needing work. It's too big, too close to the beak & wrong shape for a bird. Bird's eyes are almost perfectly round not "almond" shape like a human. The eye is not only the window to the soul. But the key to emotion of the subject & the first thing we instinctivly look at. When I was doing Carrousel animal carving. The eye was the first real detail I did when doing the head. The look of the eye set the emotion for the animal. Friendly or angry etc. The other thing is the top of the head needs some taken off & rounded a bit more. Here's a couple of pixs of eagles from a calendar I've kept (eagles are a favorite of mine) also a quick sketch I did to show what I mean & the suggestion of feathers you were speaking of. I wouldn't try to do a full coverage of feathers. In art a suggestion is often all that is needed & less is more. Hope this will help a little or at least give you something to think about. In the end YOU are the artist & it's up to you how you want to do a piece.
Mike

Eagle pix:


sketch:


A couple of eagle ivory carvings I did:

[hulagrub]

From Africa, dark blue tiger eye, jumped at me. Or pietersite. Or???

[asianfire]

Thanks everyone for taking the time jumping in on it. Was fun watching from the sidelines.

Fibers are tightly packed and the color is unusual for me, hence I thought of posing the question. I don't have enough experience with this material, but by what I have seen in the markets over the years, I would say that it is rather dark. I got a few pieces of this material last year as I was looking for green and blue Tiger-eye and went on to give a try on the green one first as it looked better (or maybe just more familiar) and had a lot of chatoyance outright.

I took out this piece this time as I thought it would be good enough to undertake this new experiment and aligned the beak and the front-part of the head to the only chatoyance that I could see in the rough (blue and close to the rind) As it turns out thats the part with the least chatoyance as far as I can see now. The strongest chatoyance is along the back of the bird in green. The green fibers do not show a lot of light-play and are rather dark, and also run at an 25 - 30 degree angle from left to right upward until they hit the solid blue wall (fibers straight top to bottom) at about 65% of the whit of this piece.

I think this, and possibly slabbed the wrong way creates a very subtle chatoyancy and little light penetrating/reflecting back creates this fantastic color side-effect.

While most people, including myself, buy or work Tiger-eye for its glaring/striking effect that can be seen for miles; I have to admit that this piece has a very attractive "Regal"color. I like it. But now, knowing where the chatoyance is, I'm going to try again some other project aligning it accordingly. I got enough material to make 7 more of pieces seized like it, or bigger.


As for cut or not: I will leave it alone for a while and then get back to it when the time is right. Thanks for all the suggestions, everything is noted and will come into effect once I get back to it.

Pete: nothing is ever lost, I feel that I have learned most after making mistakes and then trying to sort things out. Heck, I started carving that way last year because I broke some cabs and I did not want to loose the material. LOL

Mick: have not tried that material yet knowingly. I will most likely end up with some stable material in a couple of years. In the meantime, I enjoy experimenting with materials, forms and techniques. Everyone who invests as much time into projects as we do, dreams of eventually getting to competitions and being recognized; so do I. But I still have far to much fun (in all the frustration) figuring things out, and can do without the stress of having to succeed (something that would be guaranteed when one gets there and want to stay there).  

Frank: I see you did a lot of research. Good on you. That is exactly what makes this forum so interesting. Last year we had several posting like that and I learned a lot on the fly. Discovering information and learning far more than I set out for. The people here are excellent motivators.  

Best regards to everyone and thanks again for all the comments, guesses and suggestions. Kurt



 

[Rockrangers]

Kurt, did you ever continue back to the eagle head?

[asianfire]

It's still in my tray and I contemplated on doing it just recently as I'm doing the othe bird. Will get done eventually.