Gears

Last night was our annual celebration of Shavuot, sometimes known as Pentacost. There are quite a few traditions associated with this biblical festival, however my favorite part is the all-night study. Yes, I said all night. We, as a congregation (well, a lot of us, anyway), stay up all night and delve into the scholarly pursuit of studying Scripture, starting from about 10:00 pm and going until sunrise, which was about five o'clock this morning. This year we tackled the book of Ezra; interesting study, to be sure.

Anyway, as many of you may guess, I cannot just sit quiet for too long...I get antsy. So, my best bud and I carve through the night while listening, and participating, in the discussion. This year I had a lot of carving on my do-list, one of which was this stamp for the upcoming Steam Punk swap. Since I'm the host of the swap, I have no problems posting the progression of one the stamps for my contribution.

Here it starts, pencil'd out on my favorite material, white, grade A PZKut. Actual size of the stamp is 2" across. This is the most intimidating stage, I think...oh, where to start?!


Here it is part-way through the carving process...


And, here is the finished stamp, unmounted. We guessed it probably took me a couple of hours, or so.


I did carve other things, but I'll save those for another post. *smile*