Archive for category Art
Silver Zippo engraving
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on December 2, 2009
What are the best days for engraver? When a customer comes in and says “Do me something nice on that silver Zippo. I like your scrollwork and just do your thing. I’m sure it’ll be good looking lighter”.
So I get to drawing board, I can try out some new styles, play with ideas for a while and then “do my thing” on a lighter. Sure it can take way more time than allowed by the budget, but it’s fun and I’m always learning new things for the future.
One engraving style that has fascinated me since I first saw it, is called “Liberty”. It has quite unique look to it and can be concluded with one work - spaghetti’s. But very beautiful and graceful ones.
Without further ado, here my next Zippo project on a silver body.
Hand engraved Zippo
First try in Bulino
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on August 30, 2009
Bulino means in Italian burin, or graver. When engravers talk about bulino technique, it usually means engraving pretty (small scale) pictures. This technique came from Italian engravers and they create truly amazing works of art with this, and they don’t use any power tools, just one graver and small 10x loupe. Works from masters like G. Pedersoli or Firmo Fracassi are so well made, that you’d think it is photo.
One customer ordered a Zippo with engraved picture on it. As I have never done any bulino work before, I took the hardest part from that picture, a facial part of that woman, and engraved it about 3x bigger than it will be on Zippo. Here is my first finished practice plate with bulino engraving.
In real life size it is about this big:
Real size
Practice plate with enrgaving
Engraved woman
As you can see, more practice is needed.
One more spoon
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on April 8, 2009
Different things have taken up my time lately, so not much has been going on related to engraving and knife making. But the other day I engraved a spoon. It was again sort of experiment – I did not prepare the design beforehand, but made it up as I started the engraving.
Also, this was the first spoon I found, or actually any other kitchenware, that wasn’t made of terribly hard metal and was easily engrave-able.
Sketch a Day: Days 15-30
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing on March 12, 2009
Here are the next and final sketches. Some better, some worse, some outright ugly. But the good news is that it can only get better!
Sketch a Day: Days 7-14
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing on February 9, 2009
Here’s last week’s batch of sketches. Some are better, some worse. Final conclusion is, that I should just practice more.
Engraved Zippo
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on February 3, 2009
Don’t you just love it when you get something done? Past few weeks I’ve been working on a Zippo engraving for a customer. My first idea was to make it rather simple design, but that sort of didn’t work out. This is first of the ‘replicated pattern’ type of engraving I’ve done, at least on this level. One I made a mirrored design engraving, but I think this one is an improvement over the old one.
Anyways, that engraving is now completed. Here are few photos of engraving in progress.
Zippo engraving in progress, half of the contours done.
In this stage the lower right corner is completely finished (I just wanted to see how the final result will look like, impatient as I am), all the shading is done and some of the background is removed (the more shiny spots).
Zippo engraving half finished.
And here it is, completely finished.
Completed Zippo engraving.
Design took about 8 hours (I’m still very slow at it) and engraving 13 hours.
So, what do y’all think about it?
Sketch a Day: Day 6 (and Zippo progress)
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing, engraving on February 1, 2009
You wouldn’t want to run into one of these in the night.
That fella is sort of recognisable, isn’t he? But I think I will start posting after every other day or so, not to bore you to death with my crappy drawings.
But here is also a teaser of soon to be finished Zippo engraving.
Lower right corner is already inked, so that’s how the final result will look like.
Sketch a Day: Day 5
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing on January 31, 2009
Ok, panthers usually aren’t that ugly, but it’s a start, right? Actually I start to like this drawing/sketching thing more and more. I just have to practice to get anything that might resemble a good result.
Sketch a Day: Day 4
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing on January 31, 2009
A magnificent bird in a not so magnificent drawing.
Sketch a Day: Day 3 (and bit of Zippo shading)
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing, engraving on January 29, 2009
Today’s sketch gave me also fits. Just couldn’t get it right.
Maybe some of you recognize from which photo this model is taken from? There were 4 of them… Anyways, I think I will take a little break from full figure drawing and try out something else. Maybe just hands. These don’t come easily either (what does?).
But on another note. One Zippo engraving is starting to take a shape. Today I managed to start shading. Here’s a bit of it.
