mammoth woes

I transferred an image onto that scrap of mammoth ivory that I was talking about the other day... the one that I had to saw down, the one that cracked, the one that turned out perfect anyway. Well darn it all to heck, it's being troublesome. It absorbs water. Noooooo!!!! This happened with the first piece of mammoth I ever scrimmed. The next several were fine. Here we go again. *sigh* So the surface got all ripply when I wiped off the ink. I have to wait overnight for it to shrink down as much as possible. I'll try a superglue top coat, which means I'm going to have to sand it and buff it again. #$@%!!!!!!!! If that doesn't keep it stable then I can't put this image on this piece, unless I use oil-based ink and make it a b/w image. But it was going to be SO COOL in color! And sooooo hard! Ugh. Well I'll see if I can seal it and go from there. And if anyone reading this is going to ask if I waxed it, yes I did, before I started. Didn't quite do the trick.

In other news I got the knife in the mail yesterday, so I'm working on a design for that. I think I have something all sketched out that will look really cool and just barely squeak in at the upper end of the client budget, but I'd better sleep on it just in case I change my mind.

I am mailing two gallery submission packets tomorrow. Cross them fingers please. :-)