ART NOUVEAU
Please click on the picture on the left for a close-up
Scroll through the gallery on the right for some in progress pictures
Alphonse Mucha, Sarah Bernhardt Feb 2024
This design was adapted from Mucha’s original work from nearly one hundred and thirty years ago. Sarah Bernhardt as La Princesse Lointaine was originally commissioned as a poster for ‘La Plume’ magazine in 1897 and was one of several poster designs for Sarah Bernhardt that helped to promote Alphonse Mucha’s art nouveau style. I have heavily edited this design to adapt it for this inlay and the yew hair sections used here are incredibly intricately cut pieces
Size: 230x 164x 13mm
Alphonse Mucha - Zodiac Sept 2021
Nearly two years after completing the Zodiac inlay seen below, I decided to revisit what is probably my favourite piece of Alphonse Mucha’s beautiful art nouveau work. I decided to change the design slightly this time, reversing the ‘background’ sections
size: 255x 190x 13mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA - Zodiac
Well. definitely my most complex inlay to date, this inlay was based on Mucha’s fantastic ‘Zodiac’ originally dated 1896 and took me around forty hours to design. The inlay itself took me a further one hundred hours to complete! Beautiful orange english yew is used for her hair with imbuia, maple and padauk headdress and necklace, the zodiac is a combination of maple, spalted maple with koa banding. the leaves are ovangkol and the background is American red gum and ebony
size: 255x 190x 13mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA March 2023
My third Mucha inlay of 2023, the yew hair sections were particularly difficult to cut on this piece. The flowers on the headdress are cut from a selection of differently shaded myrtle wood, the hanging jewellery is purple heart and beech and the whole design is inlaid into a beli background
Size: 206x 145x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA Jan 2023
I decided to start 2023 with some more of Alphonse Mucha’s beautiful art nouveau work. I don’t know what this piece was originally called and had to really heavily edit this design from a pretty low res original image. Pear wood is used for the model here, with yew hair. The white covers are maple, the background trees are walnut, spalted oak and lacewood
size: 206x 108x 13mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA Jun 2024
This is a companion piece to the design above from last year. I found this pair of designs on Pinterest and downloaded a pretty low res copy to use as a basis for my own designs
I really love the balance of this design. The same combination of woods are used here to match with the previous design
size: 206x 108x 13mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA Feb 2023
My second art nouveau inlay of 2023, this was based on Alphonse Mucha’s work dating from 1900 originally designed as, I think, an advertising poster for Paris
There are well over 100 individual pieces in this inlay, maple and myrtle are used for the dresses, Pear and beli sapwood for the models and the background is golden camphor with an ebony border
Size: 208x 76x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA - Summer
I don’t think that I really need to state just how much I love the work of Alphonse Mucha, His work is beautiful and I have enjoyed designing and cutting these inlays, this design was taken from another of his original works, from 1896, titled ‘seasons’
The background on this inlay is some absolutely stunning golden camphor, the design is inlaid into a flamed maple board with an ebony border
size: 225x 165x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA - Winter
Winter, taken from ‘seasons’. I used maple for the snow on this piece, the background branches are walnut with spalted oak and some golden camphor, the dress is light oak and the design is inlaid into a flamed maple board with an ebony border
size: 225x 165x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA - Femme a La Plume
Based on an original Mucha lithograph from 1897 I used some beautiful golden/ yellow imbuia wood for her flowing hair, the flowers are myrtle inlaid into a highly figured piece of quilted maple with an ebony border
size: 225x 165x 12mm
MUCHA circle square
The first of two circle Mucha designs, using some of my last beli sapwood along with quilted maple, golden camphor for the hair and a myrtle background set into an ebony square
Size: 164x 164x 13mm
MUCHA circle square 2
The second Mucha circle square design, again using beli sapwood, quilted maple with a myrtle circle background inlaid into ebony. The blonde hair is imbuia and the red details on the headscarf are padauk
Size: 164x 164x 13mm
MUCHA circle square 3
This third circle design is cut from pear, maple and ebony
Size: 164x 164x 13mm
MUCHA circle square 4
Rosewood is used here for the hair in this forth circle square design
Size: 164x 164x 13mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA - JOB Oct 2018
Another Mucha design, this time using some beautiful yew for the flowing hair. the dress is maple and the background is lacewood and ebony
size: 250x 130x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA LES FLEURS - THE IRIS
Returning to the fantastic work of Alphonse Mucha again with this intricate piece based on his original work ‘The Iris’ from 1898
A combination of Maple, Yew, Ovangkol, Beli, Padauk and Ebony are used here, along with Purple Heart for the Iris flowers themselves. The background is Lacewood framed with quilted Mahogany and Ebony.
This is an incredibly complex design that consists of around two hundred and eighty seperately hand-cut pieces, it took around forty hours to complete
Size: 250x 140x 12mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA 'DANCE' HEADSTOCK
This was my first headstock design that was inspired by Alphonse Mucha's beautiful art nouveau work. Based on 'Dance' from 1898
This inlay went onto a custom art nouveau themed Brook taw with a larger version of this design also inlayed into the back of the instrument
TAW NOUVEAU
This art nouveau style guitar has a bear-claw alpine spruce front with a stunning deep red set of bubinga for the back and sides
The Alphonse Mucha 'Dance' design inlayed into the back of the guitar is also repeated on the headstock and is made using maple, myrtle, madagascan rosewood and yew
The combination of bubinga and ebony is used throughout the rest of the instrument to provide the red/ black theme used in the sound-hole rosette, heel cap, neck laminate and stacked heel
You can read a bit more about this unique guitar in the 'about' section
ALPHONSE MUCHA 'HIVER'
This inlay design is taken from Alphonse Mucha's work 'Four Seasons'. All the depth, or shadow on the hood/ dress was created with contrasting use of plain and heavily quilted maple
Size: 175x 85x 10mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA 3
With this inlay I tried to match the subtle colours used in the original piece using a selection of maple, myrtle and lacewood. As I don't engrave detail into my work, a lot of cutting went into this piece!
Size: 175x 85x 10mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA 'THE MOON AND THE STARS'
Quite a variety of different woods are used in this design. Flamed walnut, quilted mahogany, Indian rosewood, lacewood, myrtle, ovankol, bubinga and ebony
Size: 175x 85x 10mm
ALPHONSE MUCHA 'PRINTEMPS'
Again taken from Mucha's 'Four Seasons' (1895) Yew provides the intricate interlocking hair sections and the dress is maple