The beetle elytra have arrived! Let me tell you, photos totally do not do them justice. They are very very metallic, a variety of greens, and they have blue iridescence. It’s really hard to take a good picture of them.
Since I had A Plan in my mind of what I wanted to do, I sorted through through them and found about eight that were a good set of colors from light-yellow-green to deep-green-blue. This is a picture during the sorting process.
Then I took the lightest green one and started cutting it up into little squares using an X-acto knife. I didn’t know how the elytra would deal with being cut up like that, whether they would tear or snap or splinter, but as long as the blade was super-fresh, they cut up pretty nicely. The only problem is that they are concave, so it is hard to cut a reasonably 90-degree angled rectangle. I got a couple of trapezoids in there, but I made them work. The piece I’m making is a mezuzah for my mother. I spoke quite a bit about mezuzahs here, if anyone needs a refresher course.
Then I started laying the squares into the brown polymer clay, progressing from the light green into the deeper colors. Here it is in process.
I love how it looks a little like a skyscraper in Manhattan, and I could not get over how reflective the pieces were. I made an animated gif to try and share the magic with you.
Here’s an interesting thing that happened after I baked it to cure the polymer. The heat caused the blue and purple tones to come out, which was really cool. I took a picture post-baking.
Now I’m going to create a small case around it to house the scroll and give it to my mom on Sunday. We’ll see how she likes it.
She’s going to love it because it’s freakin AWESOME!!!
So pretty and shiny…beautiful! Can’t wait to see you in a month!!!