Tuesday, September 07, 2010

mermaid scrimshaw finished

This was a LOT of work! That's some seriously dark color saturation, and there are 13 colors used in this piece.

"Friend or Foe?"
multicolor scrimshaw on pre-ban elephant ivory
1-1/2 by 2-3/8 inches

This piece will be off for Rhode Island next week for a scrimshaw show/competition. I myself am not going to Rhode Island. Maybe some year I will, I'd like to.



4 comments:

Bob Easton said...

Wow! That really did get dark. With all the repeated applications of color, what happens to the ivory surface? Does it get rough from so much pointilism?

A very beautiful piece! Best wishes for placing well in the show.

Granny Annie said...

Beautiful mermaid.

Katherine Plumer said...

Thank you!

Bob, yes it does get pretty rough. The only way to get that DARK color is when the entire surface is nuthin' but dots. It's not painted on, there's no ink on the surface. I CAREFULLY wipe all the ink all the surface (of course if I scrubbed at it I'd get the the ink out of the dots!). The coloration is all down in the engraved marks. It still feels basically flat and smooth to the touch though.

Bob Easton said...

Thanks for the answer Katherine. I've done a little bit of scrim and find your technique very interesting. I know how tough it is to make things really dark. Thus the question. By the time you get that intense there are pits upon pits (ok, dots upon dots). Mine gets very rough. I might need a finer tool.