Labradorite

I am finishing the rough workings of the Solar Cycle page in the Book of Life. This page will be particularly complicated and I am also working on a painting in gouache to help me visualize what sort of blocks I will have to carve to make it work. The Precipitation page is fairly straight forward in that there is one key block that can have colors added to it later but for rendering space I want to use a series of nearly black purples and blues instead of just black. I have a feeling I'll need to carve a key block and just deconstruct from there. I was contemplating a straight black ink version of the Book of Life anyway to mimic the old medieval alchemists texts. I snapped a shot of the center stone that the entire book has been designed around and how it will lay in relation to the book. I plan to make (most likely have made :P ) a wooden book stand with the stone resting half sunk into the middle so that the pages will appear to orbit the stone as the turn. I purchased this labradorite orb from China. Labradorite is my favorite stone. The stone itself is unremarkable and most of the time a muddy hue and flecked with dark black flecks. An impatient person would regard it as an eye sore at first glance and continue on but those who lag behind to satisfy their curiosity are in for a treat. As the object is turned and rolled in the light, a flash of blue streaked with green erupts as if the essence of the universe itself is encapsulated within this sullied shell. Contemplating the orb by night helps one to imagine what dark matter must be like. Having this mineral as the center of my book will hopefully convey the fact that wondrous beauty can lie within those often overlooked.