Greene and Greene Wall Shelf - Part II

Finally getting around to putting together a post on the rest of this project.

The design is a mahogany case with oversized finger joints and two asymmetrical drawers with Ambrosia maple fronts.

The drawers have maple sides with through dovetails at the back and half blind at the front.

With the drawers it was time to consider finishing.

After a lot of reading I decided to finally go ahead and get an HVLP unit.  I got the Fuji Semi-Pro2 unit.

For drawer pulls I decided to go with a carved Ebony pull.

Finished and loaded up with our cookbooks.

In context with the whiskey cabinet to the left.

Greene and Greene Wall Shelf - Part I

This project arose from a few different considerations.  I wanted to try and use some lumber that I already had and wanted to be able to complete the build in three weeks of evenings.  The shelf is for cookbooks and recipes from magazines.  It will be near the whiskey cabinet I built last year so the intent is keep the design language the same.

 I started by creating a series of thumbnail sketches of various designs.

I was able to lay out the pieces for the wider design on the existing material.  We decided that the wider shelf would be useful.

To create a drawing of the design I started by laying out perspective and major form details. 

Next I use a fine line pen to ink the lines.

I transferred the layout onto some marker paper and filled in the color.  

As I was planning on working with existing materials I didn't bother creating detailed layout drawings, instead just working from the rough dimensions.  I ended up cutting the drawer fronts from the center of a board to get the maximum color.

The one wide board was enough for the sides and top.  The shelf and bottom were glued up panels.  Luckily the grain blended well I was able to keep the glue line out of the exposed tenons.

I decided to cut the dados for the drawer divider by hand.  This was a good exercise, luckily I started on the upper dado.  

Today I drilled the countersinks for the screws that will reinforce the finger joints and cut the drawer parts to size.  I am really pleased with the drawer fronts.

Next up will be the drawers themselves and then the sanding for the case before glueing it up.

Markers and such...

With the completion of big project I always seem to have need some time away from the shop.  I've spent some time cleaning up but there are plenty of tools to sharpen and some small shop projects that I should take care of at some point.  Instead I've been playing with markers.

Natalie is leaving for a few weeks of training soon and I've decided that I need a project to work on while she is gone.  I want something that I can reasonably complete (at least mostly) in 3 weeks.  Once she gets back we plan to start on a major house project and I want to be at least close to wrapping up any shop projects before then.

I have been compiling a list of pieces that we need for the house and have been working on designs for several of them.  My goal is to eventually get far enough ahead on my designs that I can pick and choose what to work on based on the time I have available and which project is motivating me.  Separating the design and construction of the projects also allows me design a lot more pieces than I will have time to build and will hopefully help me develop my sense of style for furniture into something a bit more cohesive.

I have been doing a lot of sketching lately and have been experimenting with different media for creating renderings of designs.  There isn't much information that I have been able to find specifically about rendering wood for furniture design.

The best results so far are a mix of markers and colored pencil. Below is a collection of sketches and renderings of a few of the pieces that are in the works.

This is an end table design that will go with the recently completed TV stand.  

It will be built mostly from cherry, likely using curly cherry for the drawer front and side panels.

The idea is to use a 16" marble or granite tile, set into a bridle jointed frame, for the top.

I experimented with more of an Arts and craft feel, though that was not received too well. This and the previous image are water color images.  I really enjoy working with water colors, but they are tough in a sketchbook without really heavy paper.

This is the current design of this piece.  I am finally getting a feel for the markers and am having pretty good luck with them.  

This might be the project that I end up building over the next few weeks as I already have the lumber for it and I should be able to complete it in three weeks.  It is small, wall hanging book shelf intended to hang in the kitchen and hold cook books and recipe cards in the drawers.  It will be mahogany to match the whiskey cabinet I built last year.

Kind of a mixture of Greene and Greene and Krenov. 

Tonight I worked on a color rendering of the shelf with ambrosia maple drawer fronts.  i think this is pretty close the design I will go with.

I have a mix of Prismacolor markers and a few Staedtler ones.  I just ordered a small selection of Copic markers which I look forward to trying.  Most of my renderings tend to be sketches that get inked with a black drafting pen and then colored.  The last sketch above I did the underlying sketch with a light colored pencil and then went straight to the markers.  Once I had the main color blocks established I began to had some detail with colored pencils.  Using a white colored pencil for highlights and a couple brown pencils for details such as grain seems to work quite well.

If anyone has any experience or suggestions with regard to rendering wood textures for furniture design I would love to hear it.