A Stag Beetle

Here's my latest beetle. It's taken awhile to get it done due to all my other projects at the moment. This is a Cyclommatus beetle; one of the varieties of the stag beetle.

I experimented with this one to see the various effects I could achieve with the copper and 'black' I was using. You can see the effects at the edges of the beetle and in the larger portions of black.

Each pixel of color in weaving is composed of two passes of the shuttle with the given color; a round trip so to speak from one side of the loom to the other and back home again. The colors that rise to the surface are the ones you see; I hide the others underneath.

I was able to achieve a darker copper by allowing both the black and the copper to rise to the surface in the same spot.

I was able to achieve a subtle shimmer of copper in the black; like a shadow of copper by allowing the copper to rise to the surface along with the black on only one pass across of the loom. On the way back only the black rose to the surface.

I was able to achieve a mottled black by alternating solid black withe black and copper.

I am considering doing a little sampler so I can see in a more controlled way the impact of the various effects.