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.
