Claw.

Here is the third piece in my 'dark' series. This one is a part turned, part carved sculptural piece. As the title suggests its based on a claw, more to the point, this would be the claw of a nightmarish creature whose grip could not be escaped!

The shape is more or less based on half of a crabs pincer but with the long hooked slightly beyond round 'over-reach' of a velociraptor's claw. It also has three sharp aluminium spikes/spines along the back of the claw, I hope these make it look much more of a fearsome weapon!

The claw itself is made from Mahogany, this is for two reasons, the first is that I had some mahogany board laying around and am no great fan of it as a timber for turning! The second and most important reason is the open grain structure of Mahogany, this gives a nice visual texture to the otherwise smooth claw through the ebonising lacquer. Again a square white plinth seemed the right mount for the piece to sit on, it was never an intention to have the whole series sitting on these but now the first three pieces have them it may well be a recurring theme on further work of this series.