cottonwood bark wood spirit carving

okay one more try...i keep deleting the post on accident...so now i'm over it.
anyway...i got some cottonwood bark from a carving buddy(adam) out in colorado. I've heard about this stuff forever and was always interested. It's not really bark...it looks like bark but it's basically wood. not wood but it's hard okay..very solid. adam says it really varies. some is harder than others..i can say just from what he sent that it definitely is. so here's a small piece i did. it's got a thin layer of linseed oil, you can't get out of control with this stuff, it will never dry and get gunky. Then i put some dark colored finishing wax to darken it a little and put some contrast in the crevices and details. i like it. it's really what a wood spirit should be. like coming out of the natural wood texture and shape. the other, larger carving is not shown....'cause it doesn't look so good. i'm not real great with larger faces yet. i'll work on it some more.
 anyway, lots more pieces to come soon. i've been in the habit of not finishing pieces. so, finally getting to that.