Its very nice wood to carve, very much like Birch and slices well. Its wood has very little pattern but what you do get is strips of colour and also blue ink like marks. When it is cut it has a very fruity smell like citrus fruit.
As the wood was pretty pale I wanted to have a go at painting the spoon, I read a few ways of making homemade paint and ended up using one by Robin Wood. only I used Green tea with some Coffee to darken it up a bit for a green colour which is a little bit washy.
I also used some Tumeric to make a nice yellow colour, I wanted to get some colours that resembled to colours on the leaf.
I did some chip carving decoration and rubbed some Coffee into the pattern which highlights it from the paint.
I am looking at getting some ground earth pigments for a better colour but for what I had in the cupboard I think its worked quite well.
