A pebble

To change my mind a bit, I just made a small gilded versal on a pebble.

The patterns are inspired by those found in a 12th century manuscript and I will teach the construction of this kind of initials (but not on a pebble) in March 2023 in an online course in English that will be broadcasted by the gentle penman

Skull

As I was digging in the garden, I came across this skull with its very elongated shape. It must be an alien remnant. That's all I can think about !

... Well, I confess, I sculpted it out of a pebble fragment. I added a magnet behind his head so it can decorate a fridge ;-)

Mind moves matter (second)

I know, I already told you... but this time it really moves ;-)

Mind moves matter

It is Virgil who says it in the Aeneid and, of course, he says it in Latin: Mens agitat molem

And so, my mind, without really moving matter, transforms it.

It is a shale pebble, hand engraved with my faithful butter knife and a nail for the filigree pattern. And to give you an idea of the size, one last picture of the work when it was in progress and I was holding the pebble in my hand.

Zodiacal pebble

Inspired by this picture, I wanted to engrave a pebble with the zodiacal signs. Here is the result, not too bad for something done with an old butter knife.

And a third pic with my hand so you can guess the size of the pebble.

peebles & filigrees

A first engraved pebble with a filigree pattern from the Ms Espagnol 33 from the French National Library.

And a second one, smaller, made as a pendant. My wife's loving it !

the ring

My wife lost her wedding ring. It slipped off her finger during a swam on a beach where we use to go.
The waves movements quicly make it illusive to get it back.
By way of vengeance, I picked a pebble on the beach and made her a ring out of it.
Here are the steps of the design :

The pebble (doesn't wonder what will happen to him)

The same one, sliced

To avoid to much sanding, after marking the inside diameter of the ring, more cutting

Here comes the hollowing out

The inside is sanded, time to even up the outside and to polish it all

The ring finished, all angles polished to avoid sharp edges, only the varnish to get done

And my wife's hand has a new ornament, phew, the worst has been avoided :-)

G comme Galet

Sorry for the title but it only works in french, it would make no sense to say G like the first letter of pebble :-)
Anyway, weekends are short nowadays which means I don't really have time to create new things, just to copy things I already did using other media.
A few days ago, I told you about a cadel letter on zinc, I copied it today but this time on a schist pebble, engraved by hand.

Ein Stein ...

This post is dedicated to Iris Van de Casteele, a belgian poet who lives in Paraguay.
She honoured me by writing a poem about my works in a collection named Grains de folie, poem which my modesty forbids me to reproduce here (even if she was kindly making fun of my failures).
At the same time, she was punlishing another collection of poems, in german this time, called Reflexionen where I found the text that follows.

For those who don't speak german, this poem starts with the words : "A Stone ...". I immediately felt again in my engraving delirium and wrote/engraved the text with a gothic script on a schist pebble.

pebble

Last weekend, I went for a walk on a pebble beach not far from home where the pebbles are made of schist and not of granite as usual in the area.
I picked up some to see whether I could make something out of them.

Thus passes the glory of the world

I wrote/engraved the sentence directly, I think I will polish a bit the next one before to make sure the letters are really sharp.