Is colored or banded stone more difficult to carve?
There are two primary aspects to consider when working with banded or layered stone. One aspect is concerned with esthetic or artistic character, the other is with a stone’s structural and carving properties. Parallel, or nearly parallel bands may be sedimentary bedding; metamorphic foliation, in which minerals have recrystallized as parallel crystals or in separate layers of different minerals, or both; colored layers from chemical alteration by fluids moving through rock and depositing mineral material; and several other possibilities as well. The banding may be microscopic, a fraction of an inch, or many feet wide. I don’t pretend to be an arbiter of esthetic or artistic taste but I suggest you consider the scale and subtlety (or lack of it) of a banded stone in relation to the piece you plan to carve. A conspicuously banded stone can overwhelm a complex shape or detailed carving. The viewer may see only the color pattern not the detail. But a highly figured stone may work very well
