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!
French Firescreen, the second version.
I don’t really understand how I missed that one on my blog, I took it to IGMA school last year and haven’t posted about it! This screen is a bit different, it has a higher count silk gauze (86) and different design, besides the frame has a different finish.
A bit of a process:
Adams Style Table.
It’s done!
The carved elements were gilted, the rest of the table is painted with acrylic gouache. Later during Chicago show I was lucky to speak to Robert Dawson, who suggested that inner parts of the table, a vase and the flowers were made of bronze. So I decided to make a new version of this table. With the real marble table top and cast bronze parts. But it’ll be a different color. I think that both table and marble top will be beige.
Adams style table
I’m a fan of on of the books on European furniture, almost every piece there is on my to-do list. This table happened to be the first one I actually made.
A bit of process below, I made several carved elements, all of them gone to my “virtual” trash bin. I wanted the carving to be more expressive.
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.
Резьба по воску
В одном из постов я рассказывала про комод в стиле Людовика XV, буду делать сразу два. Но не про это история. А про то, что там вроде все очень просто и понятно, но самая фишка в латунных накладках у комода. Как мне сказала подруга в гильдийской школе, ничто так не украшает предмет мебели как металлическая фурнитура. Французы, видимо, думали точно так же. Предметы были простые, а латунные накладки довольно сложные и красивые. Про литье я давно думала, но все время откладывала, так как не знала с чего начать. Плюс мои умения в миниатюрной резьбе были не на самом лучшем уровне. Я вроде и пыталась по воску резать, но меня результат никогда не впечатлял, и я это дело бросала.
В этот раз я решила попробовать заново. Сделала мастер модели из полимерной глины, что, конечно, не самая лучшая идея. Ну да ладно, просто с синим воском у меня дружба не сложилась. На фото – полимерка, а не воск 🙂
Нашла я литейщиков, вроде сказали, что все возможно, все реально, но хорошо бы, чтобы эти модели были таки из воска. Это дело можно сделать на заказ – попросить сделать копию с моих моделей, но я почесала затылок, взяла с полки зеленый воск и пошла мучить уже его. И даже понравилось. Сделала небольшой набор инструментов для резьбы
Сделала первую накладку
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!
New project, tuscan table with marquetry top
Almost in panic! Christmas festival is only one month away. And I only have time for one more item, this time it will be tuscan table. Lots of work here – carved legs with lots of details, turned parts, marquetry top, drawers… This table is kinda huge for me, legs are 7mm thick, quite unusual for me.
