I've been helping the son of a friend in building a large kitchen table from maple wood that was cut down on their property and finally have some time to begin another carving. Here's the presumed copy that I'll be working with. I plan to do the carving on a convex portion of the plaque and perhaps experiment with the gilding/painting. Scale will be for an 8" dragonfly.

This will be cool and challenging. I'll be following start to finish.

Everybody loves a dragonfly Frederick, I'll be following this one too!

I've finally gotten around to doing the lathe work needed for this project. The plaque is completed, the "boss" is turned and the dragonfly is sketched onto the boss. I'll be carving in the "round" and then applying the boss to the center of the plaque. Painting/gilding will then follow.

This going to be a great piece Fredrick. Lot of small, intricate detail work ahead. Looking forward to your progress updates.

Carving coming along! I've got side projects that I'm dealing with now and will try to finish(carving) by this weekend. What takes up the bulk of the carving time is cutting down the background to fit the carving!

Progressing nicely Frederick. Enjoy watching you at your craft.

Edited March 3, 20224 yr by Grandpadave52

Got a great start on it Frederick.

Carving almost complete. Some touch-up needed then the painting/gilding process can begin.

Love it Frederick. Some fine detail on the wings. Amazing. Eagerly anticipating the next steps.

With all of the snow/winds expected today, the gilding will be done.

This one is coming out great Frederick. Guess you better be scoping out a place to hang it pretty soon.

That is looking so cool Frederick!

Gilding completed. Al that is left is to do some touchup to the black paint and mount the dragonfly to the plaque.

Looks awesome Frederick. Very cool!!

Please color me VERY impressed!

Great touch with the pterostigmas Frederick, this is a great piece of art!

27 minutes ago, Cal said:

Great touch with the pterostigmas Frederick, this is a great piece of art!

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00693547

For those that do not want to follow the link Frederick provided, the dark spots on the edges of the wings - pterostigma - are early (very early) harmonic balancers .  Interesting stuff Frederick!