Bask suiseki

Hello I am a new member which lives in pyrénnées in the Basque Country. I have the opportunity to have a karstic region near to me what allows me to provide myself palombino has very good account. My pleasure is to find a stone, wash it make and make a daiza to change my stone in suiseki.
Tomorrow I leave for my last Tanseki-Koo of the year i'll take some pictures and if it represent interest for anyone i will share them with a great pleasure.

Hello Harria,

Please do post some pictures.
Give the eagles in the mountains my greetings.
How is your coast for finding interesting stones?
Regards, Sunip

Welcome aboard Harria,
I too would be very interested,
and would consider it an act of kindness,
any details you could provide,
would also be great appreciated...

Here i am on my sofa trying to explain you my last day:
I left at about 6:30 am towards my dear pyrénnées .
On the way we can cross formations stones which have the good structure, the good color but the shape of which remains too unrefined, stones are too massive, (you should not lose sight that stone has to keep as much as possible in a hand, has less to be exceptional):

The vein:

Some others isolated stones:

But I do not have to stay in this place, it is over there that I go:

Finally arrived, here is the style of slope which it is necessary to prospect:

It go left, I covered well myself because it makes rather freshly and especially with a great deal of wind:

I wanted to inspect these masses of fallen rocks:


Then I took back the road towards another place of collection, finally taken back the road not for a long time:


But I already arrive to my last slope of this year:


Well, I hope that you appreciated the narrative of my journey and I say to you goodbye to show you the final result.

Hi Harria

Nice to see your face, and photos of a awesome trip, stonesearching ....
Look forward to see what you found.

Kind regards Yvonne

Hello Harria ,
I noticed that the results of this trip is your natural landscape than the Suiseki stone (?)
I will always wait for you will find Suiseki stone in the next trip ...
Thanks for the great pictures from your trip .
sincerely ,
Hưng - Trần .

hello everybody here are some of the stones I found last saturday







Now I am waiting for your comments!!! I hope you will enjoy and I'll share the same stones after first rain water washed up. Hope read you soon!

Wow Harria You did good!...
I have only collected in rivers, very dense, hard and heavy materials.
Only one place here of this kind, Murphy Stones in far off mountains,
Climbing is very difficult for me, and then hiking back even worse.
Only once and never again, almost didn't make it back, if not for my friend.
Sorry you had car trouble, always adds to the adventure, glad no bears.
Smart to use water only, never anything else on this type of porus material.
There all nice, but I especially like...
#2 Looking out over the "Grand Canyon"
#3 On my back looking up at the night sky "Star Gazer"
#4 Summer California Landscape "Oak Valley"
#5 Hawaiian Puffer Fish "sushi"
#8 Human Figure looking to the left "King Kameya mayea"
Great in a suiban because of holding surface moisture,
desirable suiseki quality?...

Hi Harria

All the stones has interesting shapes, I would like to take a closer look at...

Could the first stone be a minogame?...the 1000 year old japanese mythturtle.
How are you planning to clean it?...it looks like it has a layer of chalk.

The third stone is a problem to me, as it has a belt of white....this can not be confused with a waterfall, if it all the way arround the stone.
The fourth stone has a large newer chip in the front...the shape of the stone is nice, but the chip make it not good as a suiseki.
Again...all the stones are nice, and the stones you show us weat, would I like to see dry also.

Kind regards Yvonne

Hello Harria,
Thank you for posting a selection of your nice findings.
During wintertime you will have a lot of fun discovering all still hidden beauty, wile cleaning these stones from clay-lime.
Regards, Sunip

hi everybody here are some of the stones I collected after the first watshed up with metalic manual brush and rain water: This time stones are not wet



other face

or other style












or standed up


and finally for today the one I called athualpa yupanki

Hello HARRIA ,
Congratulation for your good results .
I admired the trip of your search .
Regards ,
Hưng - Trần .

Hello Harria,
Very promising after the first steel brush.
Please show us the different stages of development you go with these stones.
I am curious what tools and technic you use and how far you go with the cleaning-development.
Is it your experience, when started the cleaning of a stone like this, you have to continue the cleaning process
because the clay-lime layer hardens over time again when exposed to the air?
Sunip

In fact each time I work on, I let them in water for one nigth before and when most of clay lime is gone I use steel wood workins only on wet stone.

Hi Harria

Will the clay lime continue to come back?

Kind regards Yvonne

No of course when I will have everything removed nothing will return, but by removing rubbing I spread it a little, so the work is slow with the steel wool. And nothing more for finish, NO OIL OR GLYCERINE OR ANYTHING else, but the Sébum of my fingers when I touch the suiseki.

Many thanks Harria

Nice to have your answer....Maybe Sunip will explain what he ment about the clay limes return.....from were do you have this experience?? .....as it was new to me too.

Kind regards yvonne

Hello,

I was not talking about return of lime-clay.
When one brushes a lime surface underneath this surface the lime appears to be a bit softer.
Over time this new surface will harden to a new hard surface specially when it is watered, of course not overnight but let say a month.
(This is how these stones came into being, layer over layer)
That is why it is easier to continue the cleaning of this sort of limestones and not wait to long between the cleaning sessions.
This is a different case with other types of stone where between the rubbings-brushing sessions, a space of time is beneficial i feel.
The process of yoseki is a bit different here.
It is interesting Harria uses steel wool on limestone, i never tried that.
Problem with some of these sort of stones is when to stop recovering details,
because of the question; what belongs to the stone and what is only the last layer and the surrounding soil.
Anyway lovely finds to work with.
Sunip

I think that maybe Sunip is talking carboniferous limestone, which is very different to the hard Palombino type. This is the same as Ligurian stones which don't oxidise once they are cleaned. They are nearly always cleaned of the adhering clay layer using steel brushes or wire wool.

I did not anderstand anything, but I think Kev you are right. The stones are very hard and dark blue green, it is not so hard with tjhis kind of stones to make the difference, but it takes a very long time to get out the final clay wich is nearly inside the stone incrusted in. So "patience est mère de réussite"(patience is a mother of success)
Do not hesitate to ask me your questions, I shall do my best to answer it even if I am far from being Master regarding suiseki. Thanks and hope to read you soon.

Thanks for taking us all along on your trip.

The pleasure was to me sharing.

Hi Guys

Many thanks for all your explanations...I knew about Kev's....but more have now been added....Sunip what kind of stone are you talking about, and can you show a photo?

Kind regards Yvonne

Hello,

I do not know carboniferous limestone of Great Britain.
Here a stone from Liguria (dark grey) where i found the described behaviour of oxidation as Kev explained.
I found the same wile sculpting with marble and albastre, one has to be careful once the surface layer is chiseled away,
underneath the surface the stone is a bit softer.
Cleaning those deep furrows is a real challenge.

Regards, Sunip

Many thanks for your answer Sunip

Nice stone.....

Kind regards yvonne