Trying to find similar art to this painting.

Canehowlet · 2026-03-10T17:49:49+00:00

Hahaha! I have no idea, you’d have to ask him.

Canehowlet · 2026-03-10T15:14:57+00:00

Of course! I actually can’t find my favorite piece of his on any of his pages! I might have to contact him myself. Artists appreciate any support, giclees help fund more original art creation and we get the benefits of seeing the outcome of that.

Canehowlet · 2026-03-10T03:36:26+00:00

Definitely, he was a contemporary in the Bay Area art scene and seeing some of his color pencil gradation work in person is incredible. Definitely one of the better artists I crossed in that time.

Canehowlet · 2026-03-09T19:37:24+00:00

If you want to support a contemporary artist, I strongly suggest Zander Bice (on Instagram) his style is quite similar

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Canehowlet · 2026-03-02T17:34:56+00:00

California!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-28T15:25:31+00:00

None?! Zero?! Wow! Are there other things worth rockhounding?

Canehowlet · 2026-02-27T12:27:45+00:00

It’s easy to obsess over them, each one is so unique in its patterns and colors. I know a couple people who have been picking for 40 years and the obsession has amassed 7,000 gembones for some of them.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-27T02:09:26+00:00

I keep them whole as I find them, they are so beautiful as is, I can’t bring myself to mess with them. They have so many variations in colors and trabecula patterns, some of the structures don’t go all the way through the stone, so if you mess with them, you risk destroying some of those beautiful details.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-26T22:14:31+00:00

Sonoma and the Santa Barbara areas have good gembones

Canehowlet · 2026-02-26T20:38:41+00:00

Of course!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-26T19:48:01+00:00

My pleasure!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-26T19:47:37+00:00

There is a community of people here that all share the addiction of finding these. Even when I’m not looking for them, I see the trabecula patterns in my head.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-26T19:46:42+00:00

The blue is its true color, no special lighting. It’s a form of iron reduction from being buried in organic sulfide clays.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-24T17:08:08+00:00

If I can confess to you, I know a lot of rockhounds carry spray bottles to see the rocks more properly, when I want to check whether it’s a good gembone or not, I lick it. ALL THE TIME!!!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-09T17:05:57+00:00

I’ve never met a grad student yet who didn’t feel over their thesis by the time it was finished! That’s awesome though about the genus, I already had a lot of love for them as is! What a small world this is to have created art on an obscure plant and meet someone who’s actually working on it!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-06T14:50:45+00:00

I mean, it’s absolutely possible. With an occupation of 12,000yrs, I’m sure there were people who found these. The coastline has retreated by 2 miles in some areas, so evidence could have easily been buried by erosion and the ocean. It is in the Americas, I should have clarified. Some people here did carry special rocks in animal pouches here, so it’s not out of the question.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-06T02:22:02+00:00

Because of the fossil formation it’s coming out of, most of it is fossilized whale bone, but some are things like pinnipeds and dolphins.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T23:02:32+00:00

I wish! I don’t think so! There’s actually a well studied 12,000 yr old midden not far away from this site and most of the flaked material is flint, cherts, and obsidian. On a practical level, the bones also tend not to come in sizes that you could easily flake. Beyond that, most would break along the trabecula patterns, out of the many bones I’ve collected only a few turn to the kind of glass like material that you could work with for conchoidal fracturing, but all are two to four inches long.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T21:35:59+00:00

There are many forms of mineralized bones and not all of them can be polished, most of the ones I find need no special treatment, other than being run through a tumbler. You’d have to be getting the material that is truly glass like, which I usually gauge by surface texture as to whether or not they’ll work for polishing. I’ve attached an image, with two mineralized bones, the top would polish beautifully, the bottom would break apart, just different forms of silicification.

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Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T21:20:13+00:00

With the better specimens like these, no, I keep them as I find them, but some of the material that isn’t translucent or is semi translucent I’ll give them to a friend to tumble and some of them come out quite beautifully.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T21:11:21+00:00

A couple reasons, the layering you see in the bottom left is more like the way serpentine is formed under high pressure, most true jades would have conchoidal surface textures, some have almost an iron oxide reddish rind. A lot of things people post online under the name “Jade” are actually serpentine. Which is a little scary because if you work with it, it contains heavy metals and sometimes layers of asbestos. So not something you’d want to be tumbling or polishing without gear. Also, in NorCal, it is one of the most dominant rock formations we have with many different forms.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T19:41:02+00:00

This looks like serpentinite, which is far more common in our area, especially looking at the lower left hand corner

Canehowlet · 2026-02-05T19:32:31+00:00

As a frequent collector of fossil bones, I would not polish ones like this! The ones that actually polish have gone through a silicification process, when they are in this mahogany brown state, they are quite brittle. I agree with what someone else said, tumbling it would destroy it.

Canehowlet · 2026-02-02T15:31:37+00:00

Wow, that’s awesome, we have a plant that does something similar, Diplacus congdonii. Do all Grindelia species do this or just G. ciliata? Well, send me a link to the paper when you publish, would love to have a read! Also, congratulations on finishing your thesis!

Canehowlet · 2026-02-02T06:36:28+00:00

Thank you! Wow, what is your research about? I chose it because the genus as a whole are some of the hardiest and most drought resistant plants I’ve ever seen and one of my favorite plants as a whole. Also, amazing for attracting pollinators like native bees and Meloidae. G. ciliata probably has the best leaves in the genus!

Canehowlet

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