Focusing on myself

Having a little fun with depth and shadow in a marquetry self-portrait

I’ve done a ton of marquetry over the past few months, a fact that you undoubtedly know if you’re reading this. Most of that work has come in the form of teaching or presenting, but there have also been some commissioned projects sprinkled throughout.

I’ve also been working steadily on my forthcoming book and can finally say l have some words to paper. The manuscript for that is due in September, so there really isn’t much time to waste.

This is shaping up to be the most marquetry-intensive year of my life, but I must admit that l don’t feel like I’ve pushed myself much in that arena lately.

I’m a rather prolific woodworker and am always working on a few projects, so saying that may sound a bit off. I don’t mean that I haven’t been pushing myself to make bigger and better things — I’m always doing that. Rather, I haven’t had time to do a lot of exploration and the experimental work that made me fall in love with marquetry in the first place.

Teaching marquetry is obviously something I enjoy, but often I’m focused on going over the basics and getting folks up to speed. The same is true for presentations and demonstrations - there just isn’t any time to delve into deeper and more complex topics.

Commissions are great, but the output of those are for someone else. They likely want your work because of something you already did, which means the opportunity for experimentation and trying new things probably isn’t there.

And writing the book is just a rehashing of all the exploration that I’ve already done. As of now i have enough material for at least a few additional volumes, so while writing this one it’s important for me to stay focused.

Doing the same thing over and over again is necessary to getting good at it, and life is likely going to demand it anyway. But for me to stay sane, I have to keep pushing — I can’t just retread over the same stuff and stay satisfied. I’ll go nuts.

---

Luckily, my schedule is pretty light right now, and the obligations I do have are conducive to some marquetry exploration. I’m not teaching in person for the next month (!), but every Thursday in June I have my virtual marquetry intensive course with Plane Wellness.

Last week, we went over the process of putting together more complex projects from individual components, focusing on altering the bevel direction to achieve desired results. We also started discussing methods for adding depth and shading, something that we’ll get into more this week.

I want this class to be dynamic and based on the work that I’m actually doing, so I’ve been making a point to do the “homework” between sessions. It’s a good excuse to get some work done, and, in this instance, a time for exploration.

A few months ago, I was asked to participate in the One Love Mural Project, a global marquetry collaboration “of 84 artists from 17 countries who are creating a unique quilt-like mural to be donated to Texas Children’s Hospital in Austin, Texas.” Each artist is responsible for submitting a single 8” by 8” panel based on the theme “Make Believe.”

I had been thinking about what to do for a while, but wasn’t particularly happy with anything I could come up with. As I usually do, I went to my wife to see if she had any ideas. She thought it would be funny to do a panel of me carving the word “BELIEVE” into a piece of wood, and I agreed. I also realized I could use it as an example for my class, so that’s what I did.

My reference photo

I’ve made a few portraits before, but this one presented some new challenges. Most of the work I’ve done in the past has been mostly just headshots. While these are challenging, they don’t require adding any shading or depth to the subject’s environment. With this one, I really wanted it to look like I was in the act of carving at my bench, and that meant addressing more subtle details.

A portrait of my son

One of the first issues I tackled was the shadow created by my left arm in the image. This one is a real pain, because it falls on the face of the board I’m carving, the edge, and the bench top. The shadow is darkening three distinct colors in my image, which means it has to also be composed of three distinct pieces.

When filling in the individual sections of the shadow, I looked for pieces that shared a similar grain pattern to the underlying material but were just a tad darker. Keeping the texture and direction of the grain unchanged while altering the color is really the name of the game when creating a convincing shadow.

After I had filled out all the shadows cast by my hands, I felt comfortable moving on to the lettering. I wanted it to look like true hand carved lettering, which meant I had to apply some shading. On the darker (far) interior side of the letters, I used some closed-grain Swiss pear. On the lighter (near) side, I used open-pored mahogany. I think the difference in both color and grain texture helps give the appearance of letters that come to a sharp trough.

In the image, I’ve already carved the letters B-E-L-I, and I’m working on the E. The space where the V will be is visible in the image between my hands.

I suppose I could have left this space alone, but I really wanted the image to look like I was actually working at my bench. To that end, I decided to attempt what would actually be there if I were carving — an outline of the letter.

There were a couple ways I could have gone about this. The easiest would be to just do a couple kerf cuts and fill them with ebony dust. But I wanted to do it the hard way, so I actually laid in some material. If you look closely, the V is made up of both wenge and ebony — wenge for the light sections and ebony for the shadows.

Doing all this shadow work was pretty tedious and required a ton of redos — you really never know how things look until they’re in place. But I think the time spent was well worth it. The image looks much more dynamic than it would otherwise, and I learned a good amount about how to create a convincing image.

And most importantly, I had a ton of fun pushing myself. One of the things that attracted me to marquetry was the feeling you get when a piece is inserted and an image starts to take shape. It’s really incredible, and if I’m being honest, it’s been a while since I’ve felt that way. But after fitting the last piece for my left hand’s shadow, I stood back and was genuinely impressed with my work. It’s been a while since that has happened, and it felt good.

---

Since the theme for this panel is fantasy related, I wanted to take advantage of the space where the window is. Instead of just putting what is actually there, I decided to sketch a scene based on a frame from the 1940 animated version of Pinocchio. This is right after Gepetto wishes upon a star for Pinocchio to become a real boy.

You can see I did a few alterations, but I hope at least a few folks get the reference. I figured it fit with the theme — use your thinking cap for that one.

I had a lot of fun putting this thing together and am pretty honored to be included in the One Love Mural Project. There’s some incredible names on the list of participants, so seeing mine among them is quite a trip.

As for my first self portrait being one where I’m 1) working, 2) not facing the viewer, 3) ignoring the beauty outside my window, 4) looking suspiciously like Shea, I’ll let ya’ll play arm chair psychologist and unpack that one.

There’s plenty to keep you busy.