Well, I had been looking for an excuse to use this tool.
My neighbor is a dentist, and when I asked to borrow a drill to put up some picture frames, he apologized saying all he has at home is an old foot-controlled, rotary dental drill; "like a Dremel", he added.
Oh, really? I asked.
I never did get around to hanging the mirror but I've had his drill with a small box of assorted bits for two weeks now (I promised to bring it back soon).
I like carving by hand but there are some jobs that I am still too inexpert to do well or quickly.
When I decided to do a lizard the idea of the scales presented itself. Either to carve individual scales or what I've done here,
Remove the scales with a rotary tool.
There is a base color for the lizard carved on another block (it will be yellow-green) and this block will be printed over it with a darker shade creating the shadows and spaces between the scales. Or, that's the idea.
Washing off the hanshita/drawing will cause the wood to swell and some of this detail will vanish and a trial proof will tell me if I need to reopen or remove some areas.
Proofing and printing will tell.
This may be another case where the block is just way more interesting than the resulting print.
It's a noisy tool and spits little bits of wood/dust pretty much everywhere. I was using a very small, conical dental burr and it made pretty small holes but it is not a tool I would enjoy to use very often.
(P.S. sorry about the yellow photos--the flash made all the detail vanish so I did it with just the late afternoon light and the desk lamp--causing the yellow cast.)
