Picture 005

This was a marble from hell. Black, cream, and turquoise -- should have been very tasteful. However, the cream discoloured and veined in the heat; it wouldn't really lie down smoothly next to the black; and the turquoise turned out to need more oxy than I gave it -- it reduced like crazy and ended up with a sort of metallic raku matte finish.

At this pole you see an evil pit where I didn't get a pontil mark out properly. Also you see my bad, asymmetrical placement of the original stripes (these were hand-applied after forming the base sphere, not built in to the marble body, as I recall). But at least I twisted off the mess where they all came together ;-)