Trip down memory lane

I have been going though all my old sketchbooks and came across this:



These scribbles were my ideas for my first ever carving! I am from Greymouth, New Zealand and I grew up looking for 'Greenstone' (Nephrite/Jade/Pounamu) on the beach.
It is incredibly hard to find and pieces are usually small. One year while on a holiday home I decided that I HAD to find a piece for my Aussie boyfriend (soon to be husband in a short 6 months from now!)



To date the piece I found that day is by far the biggest and nicest piece I have ever seen found on the beach. It took me 3 hours to find and I got sunburnt all down my left side - a small price to pay for such an awesome piece!
I cant seem to find any photo of it in its raw state but the shape is drawn at the top of my terrible sketches and it had a fracture line running through it which I had to work around.

At that point I didnt have any diamond burs but had access to the cab room out at Nunawading Lapidary Club.

This was the result which I am still really happy with all these years later.



Sadly I havent done much cutting lately but last year I was lucky enough to shape a piece for Belinda Newick for the 40 year Jam Factory celebrations but that is another story...........