Backyard Birds – Part 13

Written By Sasha Kopf

For the front of the marquetry book, I needed everything to be angled to approximately match the angle of the trompe-l'œil windowsill.

Getting all the letters to fit was challenging, because I needed to fit the entire word “Backyard” into a 1” space. It was difficult to even write it out freehand, much less cut it into wood. I ended up making the letters in “Backyard” blend together so that it would fit.

Photograph of the word "Backyard" in marquetry letters on a holly background. There is a pencil for scale, showing that the letters are very small.
Photograph of my hand holding up a piece of holly veneer. My name has been cut out of it, and light is visible through the outlines of the letters.

I chose a red-winged blackbird for the cover image, because I wouldn’t need to include a lot of detail for it to be recognizable. It’s mostly just a black body, head, and beak with a little pop of color on the wings.

Photograph of a marquetry book cover, with the words "Backyard Birds" and "Sasha Kopf" around images of red-winged blackbirds standing and flying. The letters on the book are backwards.

I added a tiny, non-angled version of the same bird to the spine of the book.

Photograph of the spine of a marquetry book entitled "Backyard Birds," decorated with a tiny red-winged blackbird. The letters on the book are backwards.

To make the pages of the book, I made my own veneer. I stacked a bunch of very thin, light-colored veneer and glued it together, using glue with a very small amount of black dye added to give it a hint of gray. Once the glue dried, I cut the stack into cross sections and sanded it down to veneer thickness.

Photograph of a marquetry book. The spine appears to be facing the viewer, while the cover and pages appear to be at an angle, going into the distance. The letters on the book are backwards.

Why are the letters backwards?

Most of the time, when doing marquetry, I’m looking at the mirror image of what the picture will be when I’m done. I put the tape that holds all the pieces of veneer on the right-side-up side, and I keep the other side clean so that I can glue it to a solid surface. Usually while I’m working on something, I don’t even think about the fact that I’m looking at a mirror image, but it’s obvious when doing letters. For the letters on the cover of the book, I worked on them right-side-up while I was cutting them and then re-taped them, while is why in these pictures they appear to flip from right-side-up to backwards.

Sasha Kopf
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Backyard Birds – Part 14
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Backyard Birds – Part 12