Backyard Birds – Part 1

I am working on a cabinet and, for once, have been pretty good about taking progress pictures. I will be posting here about the process of making the piece.

The first step for any of my marquetry projects is making a drawing that will be the basis of the marquetry image.

I’ve always liked trompe-l'œil images, so I decided to do a drawing of a window looking out on a yard.

I have been using the Procreate app on my iPad to make drawings. Pencil and paper are great, but I think it’s helpful to draw using layers, especially for a complex image like this.

I don’t always color in drawings, but I included layers of color here so that I could make sure there was enough contrast between the different elements of the image. For instance, I didn’t want to put two straw-colored things next to each other, because they wouldn’t show up in the final product.