The primary materials are Curly Anigre and Mahogany. There are a variety of flowers from her garden including Fressia, Lavendar, and Bleeding Hearts. There is also the Ginkgo branch flowing across the top that changes color to mimic the change in seasons.
The back of the headboard is veneered in ribbon Sapele and features five Ginkgo leaf medallions in a variety of colors. These were intended to have sort of a family crest feel, though greatly simplified in design. The inside of the cabinet is also ribbon Sapele.
The marquetry uses a wide variety of dyed veneers, I think there are 16 different colors altogether. Of all the flowers the pink Bleeding Hearts were by far the most difficult to cut properly as they have a very distinct shape that looks pretty bad if done wrong. These aren't perfect but they aren't too bad either. The marquetry drawings took quite a while and a number of revisions to get the layout finalized.
To get the fall/winter feel on the last bunch of Ginkgo leaves I used a variety of natural veneer colors and had a few of the leaves either falling or already at the bottom of the panel. It seems to get the idea across.
There are two Anna's hummingbirds mixed in with the flowers. They are done with a mix of colored Mother of Pearl and Abalone. The idea was to get the colors correct and have the hummingbirds look interesting while using the least number of pieces. This photo also shows the Fressia flowers which are done in a really cool dyed Lacewood veneer.
Here's another shot of the other Fressia flowers showing the dyed Lacewood veneer.
For anyone that's interested here's what the marquetry looks like as it is being cut. After each piece is cut it's placed in the proper location on a copy of the final drawing. Once the cutting is complete the parts are assembled into the background and one by one they are taken out and sand shaded.
The other side of the headboard marquetry as it was being cut. This marquetry piece didn't have an overly large number of parts but the image was quite large. The marquetry panel was approximately 68 inches wide by 36 inches high and needed to be broken down into many smaller pieces to fit my scroll saw for cutting.
This image shows one of the packets ready to be taped closed and cut. Lots of blue tape holding many bits of veneer in place. There is at least one piece of veneer taped in the proper location for each piece of the marquetry picture. Some of the parts have two or more pieces in the same spot so I could pick the best color after everything was cut. Thanks for looking and as always any comments or questions are welcome.
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