It is quite a lot harder that alabaster and grinds better than it chisels as the crystals can tear out rather than cut cleanly. Also the hardness varies hugely within the rock.

My aim is to get as big a triangulate shape hollowed out within the piece as possible. The limitations are on getting the tools in there to do it. This is the easy part done.

So what have I been doing since the beginning of May other than spending a completely disproportionate amount of time on the telephone to customer services at Virgin? This…

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I was in such a frenzy of stone removal that I gave myself quite a start when suddenly I had this left.

Next, I got to here   and before you knew it to here   then here    

Today I made some final corrections and got a preview about how it might look polished

I do love this bit where you finally break through the middle and now the shaping takes place from the inside out as well as from the outside in.

From here it feels like progress is accelerating as soon you can judge how the sweeps align. Slightly panic inducing at times when nothing really seems to come out where you thought it would but great satisfaction when parts come together

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From making the hole through to this point seemed to take no time at all and it is quickly coming to the really fun part of making a sculpture.

We had a lovely hike out on the high plains of Victoria, real Man From Snowy River country, and I came across this rock.

Sadly it was huge and part of the mountain so I couldn’t prise it out and put it in a backpack to bring back to my studio to play with.

The silver wire twist has been sitting on my windowsill for months but until I got the inspiration to weave the copper wire through it, it was just a rather elegant but unfathomable shape as far as a maquette went.

In my excitement about getting back to work, I forgot to photograph the stone with all of it’s craggy protrusions, but here it is, all the usable mass, ready to align the maquette and get going.

The stone looks like it could turn out to be really translucent and quite deep in colour possibly like bitter beer but it’ll be a while before that’s obvious.

The character of the piece is much more ethereal but I think it has worked.

And here is my finished hand saying cheerio as I am off to Australia this evening for three weeks for my nieces wedding. Don’t know if there will be any blogging ops.

Repairing this will be a challenge. First job is to sink sink penetrating solution into any potential problem cracks.

Then take the damaged part down to viable stone and then work out where to go.

These last couple of days have been spent in experimenting with selectively polishing some areas, using a finishing rasp to add some texture and then giving the whole piece a wipe down with oil.

Wow! Quite intense. i expect that by tomorrow the oil will have sunk somewhat and there will be more differentiation in the colour. We’ll see.

Now… what to place in this hand?