Timeworn Ivory

Hello all, great to have your company for a while... I won't keep you long today, I promise!

I'm very excited to have just started doing the Andy Skinner Timeworn Techniques course online, and while we're encouraged to play with the techniques for a while to get comfortable, I had to put one of them straight into action as part of a gift.  

My mother and I put together a configurations box to celebrate my uncle (her brother) and aunt each turning 60 this year, as well as celebrating their 35 year wedding anniversary, and the prospect of shortly becoming grandparents for the first time!  I'll give you a look at the whole box in a post soon, but just wanted to share this little element first.

One thing my uncle has done is to collect netsukes (tiny Japanese ivory figurines - pronounced netsky), so we wanted to put something into the box to commemorate that.  All we could lay hands on was a bright green plastic figurine - but very helpfully the Timeworn workshop had just kicked in, and one of the techniques is for aged ivory... so here's the transformation:

He's quite small... he's with a roll of tissue tape for comparison here, and with a 20p piece below, so that you can see the scale.


The instructions provided by Andy are extremely clear, and easy to follow, but I'll be doing plenty of practice with washes and dry-brushing, all new techniques to me, but it's such fun to be learning.  


I had to go easy with the buffing as the paint was showing a tendency to flake a bit - didn't do my prep fully on the plastic surface, I guess - but I was working to a deadline!


And overall  I'm quite pleased with the results for a first go.

Just a little sneak peek of some bits of the configuration box where he has taken his place... watch this space for more on that, and I'm sure there'll be some more Timeworn experiments to share with you soon too! 

Thanks for dropping in to Words and Pictures today.  I hope you've seen something to tickle or inspire you, and I hope you get to spend at least some time today doing something that brings you joy!

If you believe everything you read, better not read.
Japanese proverb

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese proverb

Knowledge is not skill.  Knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill.
Shinichi Suzuki

Best get back to practising then!!