A Method To My Madness

When I was in Europe on my Photography trip last summer I had two agendas. The first was to visit museums and see medieval objects which I knew of (and hopefully some that I did not) and the second was to find 18th century pieces which I could use for my work.

Back when I studied "Interior and Product Design" (furniture) at Berkshire
College of Art and Design, this is how I spent all of every day. It has been
a long time since I did this, but it feels good to be doing it again.

For the nearly two months now I have been working up designs from some of the pieces I saw in the Chateaus I visited in France. I begin with the photographs I took and adapt them to the requirements of a client who wants a pieces similar to the original. Some re-working of the design is necessary due to differences in size or in use of the object. (A desk has different dimensions to an occasional table, for example)

Below are some photos of some of my design work and a couple pictures of the inspirational piece.

An urn in Chateau Champse-sur-Marne.
Mine will be about half the size of this one

Designing is a bit different than "drawing". In
design it is not necessary to draw more than what
is needed, but is is necessary to draw the details
as they would be on a pattern, not as they look
in perspective.

Design for a desk, adapted from a table seen in Köln

The actual table

Some details and proportions needed to be changed so that this could be a
functional desk. One could not put a chair under the table and sit at it because
the centre hangs too low. I also made the front to be a drawer.

Detail of the legs

A box from the MET

Drawing and detail shots of another table, also adapted to serve as a desk.
The same challenge applied to this one, as the centre on the original was
 much too low to be used as a desk.