Русский 
English It’s been a long time…
It’s been two years since my last post here. This year was full of events. Events that were so unbelievable, that I couldn’t get back to my workshop again. All my thoughts, concerns shifted to a real life, my family. Through all these years I was making posts in other social media platforms, it seemed at the time that it would be always like that. I’d go to the shows in April-May, then IGMA school, maybe another show in autumn, or even exam to pass. Anyway, most of my plans don’t matter anymore.
But I still make miniatures and intend to do so in the future.
I’d love to show some of my miniature projects that were finished quite some time ago, but weren’t shown here in my blog.
Let’s start with these two Italian footstools, you can find a process of making them in one of my videos on my Youtube channel.
The first painted lacquer cabinet, that was made for PIMA awards at Kensington Dollshouse Festival, the second one was made later.
Another Italian project, and armchair, quite complex carving, lots of gold and oil painting.
One of my favorite and one of the smallest projects:
Another favorite, lots of details, that I thought I’d never be able to achieve.
Another Italian piece, this time in scagliola technique. I’m really proud that I was able to make it in miniature.
A French side table, made for IGMA school auction.
There’s so much more to show. Till the next time!
A Bookcase in eclectic style.
This bookcase was commissioned in the end of 2018. I found the reference drawing of it in one of Russian books on furniture history. I always wanted to make something in this style, these moldings were one of the reasons. I used to hate making them, but it was years ago. Now it seemed like a very easy operation. It’s always interesting to see how my feelings on different techniques changed over the time.
Art Nouveau Tables
Very quick project, it took me just two days to make them. Pearwood, stained.
A little sketch while planning the pieces.
Morris Chairs Upholstery
I made these chairs quite some time ago, but I managed to make upholstery only now. I was searching for the right piece of fabric at the local stores, but found what I needed in this wonderful UK based store – https://www.mariasfabrics.com/ I was blown away by the amount of gorgeous fabrics, so I bought a lot!
Art Nouveau Vitrine
Hinges are installed, time to show a vitrine.
Art Nouveau Vitrine. Part two.
I’m almost done with the vitrine. All I need now is install hinges. I tried to make them yesterday, but failed. Besides, I really needed to assemble the whole thing first. It was quite difficult, but I made it.So tomorrow I’ll start with hinges again, maybe I’ll be lucky!
By the way, the top and the bottom of the vitrine are all dry fit, I made it just for installing the hinges and after that I’ll glue everything in place.
More photos below.
Read more…
Art Nouveau Vitrine
I think this is one og the most challenging projects for me:
On the pic above the original item is on the right, on the left is a marquetry panel I was making (I had to change the layout and design of it later). The vitrine itself is pretty small (the width of the back panel is just 40mm, the thickness of the shelves is 1mm). I really like carved decoration and marquetry, of course. While I was modeling the vitrine I started reading quite an interesting article about Emile Galle, who was one of the most influlential artists in art nouveau movement. He was the one who invited Louis Majorelle to work for him (Majorelle was making brass and bronze furniture decorations, later he started making marquetry and furniture too).
I was disappointed and inspired at the same time while reading about Galle’s company. First of all, he was really good at organizing furniture and ceramics/glass manufacture process, his father was actually running pottery making business. Later Emile started producing furniture, he commissioned marquetry design and carving to the other artists, as well as metalwork. Only later he started making marquetry himself. Anyway, that was my disappointment, somehow I thought that he was producing it all by himself, but it turned out to be a dream team of artists. It’s pretty amazing, of course, but it was a surprise for me:)
Almost everything is ready for assembling the vitrine, I only need to make knife hinges for a door. For now, several photos of the process.
Site update and some other news.
It’s been a while since my last post (besides, I was writing a lot in Russian only and was too lazy to translate the posts – you’d have to switch to Russian version and use Google translate or something to read all of it).
My life moved mostly to Instagram, more and more miniaturists migrate there (thank God, it’s not Vero!), so it seemed fun.
Besides, there were some things I didn’t like on my site, like a Gallery page, now it’s called Portfolio and it’s much more user-friendly now.
I also put the links to all my social media at the top of my site, and the name of the site changed too, by the way!
Anyways, I did a lot of work since Miniature Masterworks, still have a long list of commissions, and I shared a lot of pics on Instagram about it.
But it felt a bit sad to leave my diary as it was, I’ve been writing it since 2009 and there are more than 650 posts in both Russian and English, crazy, right?
So I decided to update a design a bit and start writing again.
I also started translating the old posts into English ( I need to translate about 200 of them! Ugh…)
Among other news – I have lots of commissions, here’s one of the latest – two Gustavian chairs. Very challenging process, but I loved every minute of it and learned a lot! Hope you’ll like it!
Кровать в густавианском стиле.
Как и обещала, про кровать.
Наверное, один из моих самых любимых предметов будет. Потому что все просто и понятно – резьба, сборка, покраска. 🙂
У кровати такой нежный цвет слоновой кости, это матовый акрил. Я все собираюсь сделать видео на эту тему. Про покраску.
Заказчица, как говорится, не вредная попалась. И обивку я легко сделала, и матрас легко сшился. С обивкой была отдельная история. Когда я получила ткань, мне отчего-то показалось, что ткани катастрофически мало. Что на матрас не хватит, вот вообще. Стали с заказчицей думать, в итоге я предложила сделать типа чехол такой, который можно снимать. И я решила сделать его двусторонним, можно вывернуть и будет простыня. В итоге хватило ткани аж на три подушки 🙂 Хотя нужно было две.
Ну и видео вдогонку с демонстрацией 🙂 На ФБ и в Инстаграм видео подлиннее.