I've been toying with some ideas for the next piece and am still intrigued with long expressive leaves like those on the orchid tsuba and kagamibuta. I'm really enjoying developing a more direct sort of carving technique whereby the actual chisel marks are left to articulate the surface. I also love the juxtaposition of very refined and delicate inlay with these very immediate marks as left by the chisel face.
I found a beautiful piece of cloudy white mother of pearl in my scrap box, actually an old button, that just screamed "moon" at me. So I want to try and use this, set flush in a steel ground, to represent to moon seen through some grasses. I'm also going to try and develop the basic idea of how kagamibuta are made. I don't think any real exploration of the format took place in the past so I'll give it a go ;-) Basically exploring the way a metalworker can produce an artistic work that is still light enough to function as a netsuke and yet also make use of the full potential of our materials and processes.
I went out walking our dog yesterday and collected some various grasses. I've just been playing at minimalist
ikebana. Here's one of the compositions I photographed...you might get some ideas for working out designs like this too, it trains your senses and eyes and it's good fun too.
Here's a link to some of the other images I took of grasses. Feel free to comment on them and if they're of any use to you please feel free...
