Friday, September 1, 2017

Petoskey stones

I'm a bit of a stone fan. Maybe in another life I'd have been a geologist. Here are some of my stones.
Clockwise from top left:
River and lake stones; I love how they get smoothed all around.
A chunk of potash from Saskatchewan - one of our major exports. If you lick it, it's very salty.
Some special stones including mica and flint, which I keep in an onyx bowl.
Obsidian from Mexico. Let it sit in the sun and get warm, then rub it on your sore shoulders.

The DivaCZT's guest challenger this week is Jane Reiter from Michigan, and she's challenged us to be inspired by petoskey stones, common in her state. Here's picture of petoskey stones.
Very cool. You can read more about these stones, see some photos, and see some of Jane's work on the DivaCZT's blog post here.

Somehow 'petoskey' and 'pentagon' got mashed together in my brain, so my first effort attempted to use five-sided shapes. Looking at the pictures later, I noted that there are some pentagons, but mostly hexagons. I didn't get around to adding the dark centers because I liked it just like this.
Tangles: Pearlz, Perfs, Tipple.
This time I wanted to get those dark centers in there and they became large Black Pearlz. The multitude of thin, radiating lines on the stones got reduced to five. I do love those oversized black pearlz!
Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Pearlz, Perfs, Tipple.
I decided to really try to see what was in the stones.
I noticed that the thin, radiating lines were light, not dark.
What originally looked like Perfs between the shapes, I realized was was the meeting of the thin, light lines. I tried to do that in the lower half.
Then I got funky and did another oversized Black Pearl and some strange little wiry sprouts.
Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Pearlz, Perfs, Tipple.
Thanks Jane. This was fun! And educational. Which is also fun. :)

9 comments:

  1. Oh these are all so much fun! Love the goofy little spirally wiry things on the last one. Amazing shine on the perls.

    I love your rock collection. Have you ever heard of septarians? They are also from fossilized critters, only they were sea creatures, captured by volcanoes and forming hollows that got filled with limestone, calcite, and arogonite. Very cool.

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  2. I was looking forward to seeing what you would create for this challenge. Thanks for sharing the "evolution" of your fossil tiles --- as it were. Each tile is wonderful in its own way. I'm also attracted by rocks and even took two geology courses in college----a loooong time ago. I find myself looking out the window on car trips when the road goes through a cut, and trying to figure out what types of rocks there are and what processes have been at work on them. I had never heard of Petoskey Rocks, but now I'm a huge fan.

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  3. I am also a stone fan and pick nice ones wherever I walk. Also tangle on them and sometimes put one on a grave (old Jewish habit).
    I like what you did with this challenge!

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  4. I love stones. I don't know much about what they are but the shapes, textures and colors always intrigue me. I have never seen petoskey stones.I wonder what gives them their shape and patterns. I will have to investigate to see what part of the country they come from too. Love your tangles as usual.

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  5. What lovely and different takes on the Petrosky stone inspiration;-) I love the simplicity of using just orbs. The last one is delightful with those little wirey bits.

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  6. You really put a lot of effort into figuring out the construction of those Petoskey Stones. I love all the variations, especially those black pearls.

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  7. Love your take on this challenge! So inspiring!

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  8. Your interpretations of the Petoskey stone are just wonderful and very cretive! I like them all!

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