Quail Bowl Diorama

The following are multiple pictures of the same bowl, but from different aspects. There are so many aspects to the bowl, there was no way to get everything with just one shot.
I started the bowl in late 2000 and finished it in 2001. It was a thank you and partial payment to my brother-in-law, Darrell, for work done on my new property. Custom made, each detail was requested by him.
The overall bowl size is small, 9 inches diameter. I could have used at least a 12 inch bowl to provide room for all the detail; however Darrell requested a smaller size in order to fit his display area. Quite a challenge and a lot of miniaturization work in order to get everything he wanted on it in such a small field.

First a look at the overall design on the God's eye side. Leather dye, shoe polish, Dremel engraving, and pyroengraving were used to provide the varied topographies.

The exterior basket is devided up into four major segments: 1. the God's eye you see above, 2. a desert landscape area with pyroengraved cactus and hills, 3. an inlaid Kokopelli, and 4. a father quail with offspring.

Below is a close-up of the God's eye from an exterior view and interior view.

God's eye is composed of embroidary thread dyed with leather dyes, snake bones, and pheasant feathers. The blueish color at the base of the gods eye on the interior view is a simulated lake inside the gourd. As you may have guessed, this gourd is decorated on the exterior with the four scenes as given above and has a complete diorama on the interior. We'll see more of the interior diormama later.

Another panel of the exterior - the Father quail segment. The small inset is his offspring looking up to him for guidance. Darrell, my brother-in-law has two sons, so this was especially important for him to have on his gourd.

Here is the kokopelli segment. The kokopelli is made of inlaid copper sheeting, hand drawn and hand cut to fit inset areas of the gourd.

I didn't take any worthwhile shots of the pyroengraved cactus and hills segment.

Click here for interior diorama pan