odyssey – Marqueterie et Tiffany

The Peacock Lamp finished

20th October till 20th January and the Peacock lamp is now finished! My photos don’t bring out the full depth of colour, but there you go.

There were a number of difficulties to overcome, the first was the lack of availability of a brass upper ring or its support ring.

As I had already thought about strengthening the lower edge of the Wisteria lamp that is already underway I had purchased several meters of tin coated copper braid from Tressage du Dorlay, 3mm inner diameter, 6mm outer diameter. This was considerably cheaper than the brass ring (2.37€/meter as opposed to 49€) and formed easily around the finished opening after demolding. After soldering in place and coating the surface with solder, this gave a clean round form to the lampshade upper opening.

The 76mm support ring was replaced by a 140mm tin coated ring which I soldered in place on the lamp inner surface at 6 different locations. This too was considerably cheaper ( 7€ instead of 114€).

The Peacock Lamp First Repeat Section

Here we are with the first of eight repeats almost finihed, I’ll swap out number 51 in blue for better blended in green/yellow blue colour. The glass colours chosen are: WISSMACH 703 WO Mystic blue purple white for the top, then bleu vert et opaline WO 197 et vert claire et opaline WO 57 et orange et opaline KO 112 from Stefatelier, Verre « Youghiogheny » bleu cobalt ambre et opaline, Vert et Jaune Chamarré from GK Terchniques

A reminder of the sketched out colour ideas

Why only work on One lamp when you can work on two

So my cousin Nicola asked me if I would make a lamp for her and after a little research on the internet she said that this one looked nice, but maybe a little smaller than this 27 inch lamp, so we went for the 16 inch version which I sketched out for glass colours

So of we go, I’ll do this one at the same time as the Wisteria!

Slowly but surely

Slowly but surely the first of 6 sectors is underway with roughly the first 125 pieces ready, somewhere around 1/3 of the pieces on this sector.

Wisteria underway

The Wisteria lamp is underway with the first of glass pieces cut, ground and placed on the pattern.
Only 1950 pieces to prepare before soldering.

Wisteria Glass

Next step is to choose the Glass

I’ve chosed three Youghiogheny glass types to combine here,

The Cobalt blue amber and opaline
The Opale ambre jaune vert et rouge
The bleuviolet et rose à l’or & opaline

Shown above, from Stefatelier in 30cm by 30cm format and paid 85,84 euros for the three sheets, I also picked up the tacky wax and the pickling gel for a further 11,20 euros

Celia’s lamp – Tooled up

Well everything is ready, just need to wax up.
But wait what is that tool for keeping the mould horizontal at different heights?

Yes! It’s a round broomstick sticking through the hole in a drawer. But how do I adjust the height?

Well you’ve hung brushes, brooms etc in a shed maybe? Well it’s the same one way grip on the inside of the drawer.

The dragonfly lamps part 2

Celia’s idea of a lamp was more like this, nuances but also colour variants and a degraded colour scheme from top to bottom.

This should be easier right? Well I’m waiting for the filigrees to see if the wing colours are not too bright. Yes, more worries, well I guess I would just change the wing colours if they don’t work.

The Dragonfly lamps part1

A quick reminder of Alix’s lamp suggestion, mostly monochrome and all is nuanced.

Nuance is so difficult to do, especially without a light table, I had faith, well some so tried it over a lamp, not very accurate but…,

Clearly there will be some nuance, so my worry drops a little, the remaining question is of course will my choice of nuance work, well I hope to know for Christmas!

Projects for 2024 in Tiffany style

At Christmas first of all I gifted my parents the Daffodil lamp from 2022.

Then was asked by daughter number 2 if I could make her a lamp, number1 then threw in a request, I guess fame starts somewhere.

Told them to check out the Sotheby’s web site for ideas (they have sold a lot of originals. Well blow me down with a feather if they didn’t choose the same model, almost (different colour schemes), therefore only one mould to buy

Dragonfly in blue purple for number 2, all is in the colour nuance here, I’ll do this one second.

Dragonfly in more easily distinguished colour variations. So I’ll take on this one first.

But which size lamp to go for? Well I got Celia (number 1), to check out last years 22 inch lamp and we wisely went for a smaller lamp. Better for a smaller room.

For the mould, as for last year I ordered from Verrosaique, and I’m expecting a delivery towards the beginning of June. I’ll need to get in touch with them again to order the jewels and the rings.

This was the lamp size chose, 14 inches, so I will look at how I can work the colours from the larger lamps into this smaller version. Will need to check with Alix (number 2) if this size is ok for her.