More Scarab and a Ramble...

I've got my bronze scarab cut out and ready to go into the etchant.  The black and grey that you see on it is the resist--the bronze lines are the ones that should be etched, the black and grey raised.  Enlarged you can see the results of my shaky hand.  I may have to have somebody else put the resist on for me.  I've also not done much etching.  The last etching that I did was on nickel silver, which, either is harder to etch, or my solution was too weak.  I am going to try this in the same solution and see how it goes. I think that I read that, as it sits it gets stronger, but I'll check that out before I proceed.  Cut out, the oval also looks smaller than it should in relation to my glass one--remember, it still has to be domed.  Now we put it in solution...and wait.

     

I've also been thinking more about this blog and realized that I should talk more about my trips and, specifically about the inspiration for my pieces.  On some I will, but some, like this piece specifically, have no more inspiration than Egypt and my idea for a scarab piece.

Many have asked what my favorite trip has been.  For a long while it was China, but all have been amazing!  China always comes back to me because, for what we saw and did it was an incredibly inexpensive trip.  Still much less expensive than many countries to visit.  I was a bit leary about going to China, especially from about two weeks prior to our departure when my husband sent me some stuff from Yahoo which spoke about "squatty potties" and pages and pages of rambles of travellers who described the difficulties (for us women!) and further described the levels of cleanliness of the stalls, their snot-covered walls and so on and so forth.  Turned out to be not so bad.  Maybe because we were there right before the Beijing Olympics but the toilets were clean and rather Americanized.

Now, I sound like a two year old--potty obsessed and all but, in my observation--restrooms the world over were pristine compared to ladies rooms that I've visited in the good old U.S.A.  Except maybe in Tanzania--but that's a third, third world country.  The most unpleasant potty prospect there, for me was the day we went into an area of the Serengetti that's only ladies facility was in the brush, behind a large rock.  Fortunately my bashful bladder was cooperative and I managed to make it back to our tent without having to leave my scent in the jungle.