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Sunday 18 August 2013

A Book

It's made from old boxwood, with horn inlays of different colours and gold leaf underneath. It’s for a friend's 80th birthday; he's a writer, hence the book. The symbolism of the tree and the inscription on the back are personal to him; he'll know what they mean. The colours are deliberately autumnal, denoting, with affection, I hope, his age. Dimensions are 1 1/2" x 1 1/4" x 7/16".

I wanted an old-looking book, but not one with a damaged spine or corners, so worked on textures and distressing the surface. I discovered two things: gilding is a skill, so I settled eventually for a crinkled gold appearance underneath the horn inlays; carving the bezels in which to set the inlays also requires a delicate hand.

The inlays have 23k red gold leaf under the tree and roundel on the back (it has some Hebrew lettering underneath; the word “chai” means “life”).






Wood stains used were 1) a mixture of coffee and redbush and 2) a mixture of cochineal and turmeric, diluted; applied in different places and with different intensities.



The wood has reddish bands through it, visible on the spine, and I wanted to tie those in with the surface staining and the colour of the box. The 'page edges' and beading were left unstained. The piece was then lightly sanded to 12,000 grit and lightly oiled.



The box was handmade, too, and covered with a thick handmade, though printed, Japanese paper.

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