Natural Design
The designs of my first build here at the Somogyi shop were rather square and geometric, so for my second build I wanted to do something a bit more organic. Ervin has a large collection of books on design and art from all around the world. Looking through those, what really caught my eye was the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy. He makes art with things found in nature. Inspired by that, I decided to go out and collect some leaves from around the neighbourhood of Ervin’s shop, and see if I could make something with them.
It was mid spring when I collected the leaves, and I was surprised to find a full range of leaf colours. All of them within a short walk from the shop. I learned that in order to dry and preserve leaves, you could use silica gel. I got a bag of that and left the leaves buried for a few weeks.
When I pulled the leaves out they were quite dry, and they retained a lot of their colour.
I arranged the leaves under a rosette shaped cut-out. I tried many arrangements, saving the ones I liked, until I found one that I decided to go with.
I held the leaves in place, and cut them out for the rosette.
I attached some wood onto an ebony backing to contain the epoxy, and held the leaves down with the same rings that I used to cut them out. I used special marine grade epoxy with UV protection, which will help to preserve the colour of the leaves over time.
After the epoxy dried, I sanded it down to the thickness needed for the rosette.
I then cut out the ring for the rosette.
And glued some purfling to it.
I was using Adobe Illustrator as a visualisation tool, and while experimenting with different ideas I added a dark gradient over the rosette, like a shadow being cast. I really liked that look, in combination with this particular orientation of the circle of leaves. I decided to go ahead with that idea. When it comes time to apply the finish, I will airbrush the gradient.
Inlaying the rosette. The top already had its soundhole reinforcing donut glued in place underneath the top, which is needed to have enough material to inlay into.
After sanding the rosette flush with the top, the sanding scratch reduced the transparency of the epoxy somewhat. The transparency will return when the clear finish as applied, but it makes it hard to photograph.
My next challenge was to come up with a headstock design. I had some requests for a non-open headstock. I wanted to be able to offer that option, while still keeping the natural organic feel of this build, and hopefully fitting with the overall aesthetic of my work. Inspiration for this one came from the split headstock designs of Michi Matsuda. I did also ask Michi’s permission before borrowing the split concept. My process was I first drew a rough sketch by hand, then I transferred that into Adobe illustrator and started manipulating it until I was happy with the basic shape. Then I made a prototype headstock and added some bevels. After many iterations and a couple prototypes, here’s what I came up with.