Marquetry “Birth of Venus”, approximately 24″x14″ (without frame) and 3’x2′ with frame. It took me seven month to finish this project. I had to visit Florence, Italy to see the original piece of this Renaissance masterpiece in the middle so I could understand the art of picture better. I used multi-color veneers, had to order some of them from Europe. in order to get richer tones of color I used hot sand and bleaching to get darker or lighter colors. I also created many tricks to catch the details as much as possible from the original painting. For example, I used small Japanese round chisels to cut the veneer quickly so that I can make those blue flowers and green leaves easily on the right side figure. It is common people use hot sand to make the veneer color darker but I also soaked some veneers in the bleach to make different shades of lighter colors. The light blue of the background sky was actually made from this technique.

Launch Gallery