Fruit de Mer

Its time to let this one out of the bag
Thanks to Kurt Bird who came up with the name.
I think this is black walnut but if I am wrong please correct me.
This was one of those pieces of wood that kicks around from spot to spot in the shed as you are aware that it is nice pieces but hesitate to use until the light bulb comes on.
At Christmas I took the family over to our holiday home. Each night before dinner id go down to the beach and have an entre of rock oysters well maybe a few more than an entre some nights I could hardy eat my dinner .
While sitting on a rock waiting for my kids to bring the next oyster (yep I have them well trained, bonding time) they don’t like them much but they like getting them for dad. The only problem with them supplying them is they always have a bit of shell in the oyster.
So hear I was sitting on my rock and I saw the largest oyster yet, I had to get this one myself .Oddly enough inside the shell this pacific oyster had a small pearl inside More like a lump attached to the shimmering shell.
When I arrived home at xmas with obvious Dts for woodturning I went into my shop and tripped over this bit of wood yet again. The light bulb went on big time
I mounted this piece on a faceplate to start and turned a spigot but then mounted on my trusty Mdf fly wheel so I could turn out the waste on 3 centres
The next step was a teaser to turn the v groves of the outer clam after the 2 out side ones 1 gave up and proceeded to carve with different bits from my new King Arthur tool range.
Then sanded and sanded and sanded ,the out side was sanded to 600 grit then painfully textured with a fine dremel bit being carful not to end up with any lines in the texture . You could say this has pixels to the inch as they are so concentrated
The pearl is made from Olive bleached then airbrushed with a pearl translucent paint ,then again with a reflective medium .The inner clam has been sprayed with 20 or more coats of lacquer to give depth to the grain
The mallee burl was airbrushed with 5 or 6 different colours to take on a simmering effect like coral in clear water
I hope you like this piece because I sure do
Comments appreciated good or bad
Size 350mm long 14 inches