Trying some new things

Went down and saw Tim Herman yesterday. He was showing me some of the tricks the Italians use to make things look more 3D with less work and since I actually got a little time to engrave I thought I'd try them out.

Made a bracelet center for the ever-indulgent wife (and then the bracelet to go around it). Learned a lot, as I hoped. Mostly I need to draw some reference lines before doing the parallet line background to avoid them gently falling over to the side as I go. Could / Should have cut the shading for the letter heavier. Need to make a finer point to stipple inside that shading cut - I just used a steel point I had handy and it's not quite fine enough to get in there right.

Still, didn't come out too bad and it does look surprisingly three dimensional even though it's dead flat with no relief at all.

I was also trying out a new printer I got for my portable computer. It's a little ink jet and by printing on baking parchment I was able to transfer to the Cirelli solution with no problem. Printout wasn't fully dark but it was sufficient to cut an oval and a W.

Only real problem I had was breaking the drill bit I normally use to make the holes - the one I grabbed to replace it was a piece of crud!