Walnut progress

After a lengthy bout of lack of self motivation, today I picked up my walnut carving and began working on it again. Forgive the lighting. I left it a bit late to photograph. 
The hole in the front of the carving will hopefully have a piece of Jade/Nephrite inserted. The hole in the back is for natural light to shine through to enhance the variations in the greenstone, I hope. I still need to shape the semi-circles and add a v-groove design before I focus on sanding and staining.
The hole below looks off-center but I think that's more to do with the illusion created by the smaller hole along with the angle I took the photograph.

BACK

FRONT

Walnut carving

Here are a couple of photo's of my newest carving I'm working on. I'm unsure of a title yet but am aiming somewhere in the region of 'Hazardous Waste', Radioactive.....?. You get the general idea. 
I have found that this piece of wood (walnut) has a lovely grain to it. I think this is due to me previously using driftwood which doesn't show the grain as well due to being submerged in water for long periods.  I'm only about half way to finishing this piece so still a bit of work to do. The back (top below) was a challenge to add a curve to it but it's either beginners luck, which probably means i'll never be able to do it again, or I might be a natural (lol).

Water fowl carving

I thought I would share this carving of a local waterfowl, in abstract form. This particular waterfowl would use his colouring and extension of it's head pointing upwards to blend in with the reeds. I carved it from Tasmanian Blackwood. The base is a native timber Totara. I donated this carving to the community for them to raffle off.

The Devil wears Prada

I'm glad to say that this carving has reached it's completion. Although it ha been on g+ for a few days I have only just found time to place it on my blog. I took a tongue 'n'cheek approach to it's title. The Devil with his imperfections is shown with the imperfection in the carving, although I think it enhances it.

 

New Wood carving

True to form I'm working on more than one project at a time. I seriously think I enjoy putting myself through this. A bit of a sucker for punishment so to speak, as it drains me. This is an early stage of what looks like an abstract shoe of some sorts.