Not So Much

I'm still pretty much stuck indoors, and fiddling around in Photoshop is my adult equivalent of settling down with a box of crayons and a drawing book.  Though I may yet reach for the crayons and pencils...  There are plenty lying around the house still and, unlike felt pens, biros, and gel pens, they will survive a decade of neglect and still start up first time (unless someone did not follow my strict instruction never to use pencils as drumsticks...).  In a digital age, it's easy to forget what a wonderful, wonderful thing a good-quality pencil is, coupled with paper of a decent weight with a nice "tooth".

Inevitably, more half-finished rings are emerging from the workshop. They are the "blanks" out of which I will fashion something a bit more interesting, a bit more weathered and characterful.  But, personally, I like them in this purer state, too.  This one is not so much a ring, as a cosmic eye:

This one, not so much a ring, as a cosmic echinoderm:

Echinoderms (sea urchins, starfish, sea cucumbers, and the like) are unique in the animal kingdom for their five-fold bilateral  pentameral symmetry.  As you may recall, I am a bit of a collector of fossil sea urchins (see This Old Heart of Mine).

By the way, if you're looking for a present for a photographer friend (or for yourself) why not have a look at the One Year for Japan 2015 charity calendar, produced by photo-book blogger Laurence Vecten (One Year of Books)?  He has persuaded some real "name" Japanese photographers to contribute, including Rinko Kawauchi and Daido Moriyama.  There are only 500 copies, and proceeds go to National Parents Network to Protect Children from Radiation, in Japan, a post-2011-tsunami charity.

(image from One Year of Books blog)