Post #319951 by Paipo on Thu, Jul 19, 2007 4:02 PM

Thanks Lake Surfer. Yeah, I'm very much into the Marquesan styles too. I chop and change between all the major Oceanic cultures, but if I had to pick just one I'd have to go with Marquesan. I love how they incorporated tikis into virtually every object they made, along with the amazing geometric motifs which I'm only just getting started on.
you're right about the pebbles too - the process goes like this: gathering, initial grading, final selection, drilling, sorting for graduation, then stringing! A lot of work for something that looks so simple!

I didn't get much done yesterday as I was feeling pretty seedy (not self-inflicted!), but got a little further on the new jade piece.

Hole for the tongue:

Took a quick impression of the negative space in the mouth to fit the tongue snugly:

I also shortened the tongue as it was disproportionately large:

This piece has been entirely hand sanded with cloth and rubbing sticks, apart from the back which had a quick #100 sand after the shaping. The design was just too tight to sand using rotary tools without the risk or leaving more toolmarks or erasing the clean curves and edges I've worked so long to create. Time-consuming but strangely satisfying....