Beach Boys

When I went to Galveston Beach last summer, I took this shot (second photo) of two boys on the edge of the water. Looking at it, I knew I wanted to try to recreate the scene using the Fusion marquetry technique to describe the waves. I had only used Fusion on one other project before, and only on the edges of cloud shapes, but was inspired to try. It's a very slow and painstaking process of sanding and scraping the veneer that's layered on top of another until it becomes transparent to the color beneath, sometimes sanding completely through. I first glued up the sky, 2 greys for the water, (with the one closer to shore being a little bluer), and the Spalted Beech was perfect for the sandy beach. I laid the leaf flat next to my tape to determine the scale needed to look right (3rd photo), and that's what determined the size of the piece.  I used a vacuum bag to glue up.  Then I cut out the white veneer for the wave shapes, and glued them on top of the greys. I used card scrapers, plastic tubing wrapped in sandpaper, and a Dremmel tool with a pointed sanding tip for the tiny jagged edges of the waves' tops. Using Hot Hyde glue is essential, as it doesn't leave a white ghosted line around the edges when the veneer is glued up. 

For my first attempt, I'm very happy with the results, and I know I will be doing more of this. Best of all, it sold (from progress photos) before I was even close to finishing it!