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Instructional Sites

Marquetry Tutorial: Both marquetry and some very simple intarsia with craft knives rather than scroll saws. A simple, modern process.

Intarsia, How to Do It: Another modern process, more complex.

These are the most suitable how-to's I could find. Modern intarsia is very different from period intarsia.

Other Sites, Supporting Documents, and References

Merouda's Intarsia Archive on Furl: Decent intarsia information is surprisingly hard to come by; most of it is modern sites put forth by people more interested in selling you their patterns or completed works. This is my Furl archive of the things I thought useful, with comments particularly relevant to coloring the wood copied into the archive.

 

V&A Access to Images: Search for  museum item number 5785-1859 to see a 15th c. panel of "Justice;" 150-1878 for a 16th c. trompe l'oeil panel . The phrase "wood inlay" will bring up a number of interesting items that might also be considered when wanting to decorate with this technique, such as W.17:1-1910, an early 17th c. box that has has some of the bits of wood fall out, or W.47:1 to 28-1931, the late 16th c. Great Bed of Ware.

Heraldic Arts and Sciences:
Beyond the Banner and Shield
Part 13: Faux Intarsia Applied to a
Box and a Book 

Unlike most of the other articles in this series, this one will briefly summarize two larger articles on this site. The bonus for this article will be in the additional links in the side panel!

Intarsia is a woodworking technique by which an artist creates a picture by assembling and inserting cut shapes of different types, grains, and colors of wood. These creations could range from very simple to incredibly complex. It differs from inlay in that it's always various sorts of woods and it's always pictorial. Inlay can, itself, be very extravagant, but it's generally comprised of patterns or lines. Neither is intarsia the same thing as marquetry, in that intarsia is set into a base wood, with the forms carved out of the base wood to receive the intarsia pieces. Marquetry is glued down to a flat piece of wood. All this said, you'll often find something that is labeled as "marquetry" or "inlay" or "intarsia" that crosses this definition. The important thing to remember is that intarsia uses differently colored types of wood set into a substrate and creating a picture.

Faux Intarsia seeks to emulate the look without emulating the process. Rather than cut out and place a multitude of small wooden bits, we'll stain a single section of wood various colors.

The materials used, briefly:

  • A section of thin, flexible wood
  • paint brushes
  • various wooden stains
  • craft knives
  • sandpaper
  • glue
  • varnish
  • wood burning tool
  • pencil, pen, transfer paper
  • rulers
  • and a belt sander.

These were used to create two wooden medallions that were then applied to a box and a set of boards for book binding, as seen below.

This project has been described in some detail, with many accompanying photos, here. A briefer explanation of history and technique is here. Rather than rehash those perfectly fine articles for this, I will direct you there for technique and discussion.. 

 The square medallion applied to the book board, features the arms on a lozenge. This form of display, arms of a women upon a lozenge, shows up in late period, although the lozenge itself is earlier.

 

 

The round medallion before application.

 

A relief panel made with wood veneer and applied to a chair, by Maestra Gwenhwyvar Nocturnal. It's very similar to the faux intarsia, although the wood is a great deal thinner than the flexible plywood. She used pyrography to outline her drawing, and then began to paint it, although I don't know what sort of paint she was using. I like the contrast of the light and dark wood, and it's a very nice way to jazz up a chair with heraldry!

{Elyse Boucher} {Arts and Sciences Top} {A&S Heraldry} {Poopie the Pirate} {Help Support This Site}