Finally, some progress

Work on this stone has been spotty lately due to a heart rhythm disturbance I've been experiencing. It is now pretty constant and saps my energy and will to work. Will see a heart electrical specialist tomorrow. Anyway, I've been able to put in 2-1/2 hrs. on it over the last two days and the stone is starting to show some cohesiveness of design as some of the major forms get refined. This particular piece of alabaster contains lots of areas of dark, dirt-like impurities, and in some cases I have no choice but to carve them out. As a result, the design of this piece is at least in some measure determined by what I can't work with instead of what I can. I remain optimistic, however, that the final character of the piece will be good despite this ongoing problem. It's obvious that the generally circular theme is dominant, but I have yet to resolve the projections around the periphery to my liking.

A belated post –

Some time has elapsed since my last post and the stone looks quite a bit different now. I realized that this piece of alabaster had significantly more and larger areas of the "dirt" that I had to deal with in the first two orange pieces. It became obvious that a fairly significant area of the stone was going to need to be removed to get rid of it - the stuff has no structural strength, and would not be a suitable surface long term. It's really as bad as a sand pocket.

So, instead of just getting rid of the material and leaving its cavity exposed, or trying to fill the cavity with tinted epoxy or similar filler, I decided to carve out the biggest area of it and make it a feature of the design. This doesn't always work out too well, but in this case I really like the result. I ended up having to carve completely through to the other side and then finished the edges in a manner consistent with the overall theme. Side A is nearly fully resolved, but side B is going to be more of the same, so the piece's sense of unity is far from a done deal.