Saturday 21 May 2011

A few of May's commissions, 2 week closure, engraved windows, and Harrods.

May has been one of my busiest months and I have finally completed all orders I had to before our holiday in the south of France. Wonderful Saint Raphael and the surrounding areas will be our playground for 2 weeks including a little trip to Monaco, just love watching the variety of fancy vehicles that will be driving around, being the F1 time, generally overtaking us at a blurr in our little hire car! I will be back in the office on June 8th.

Tomorrow I will be engraving for a perfume launch by Givenchy in Harrods. these are usually great fun, I get to meet so many amazingly beautiful people. I adore the sounds and aromas of this area of Harrods which I have come to know so well. This time I will be situated in the display area between the White hall (cosmetics) and the Black hall (perfumes).

One of the commissions I had this month, was for 2 small windows, pictured below. I had previously engraved a similar scene for this customer and they then extended the front of the house so asked if I would complete some more to fit the new entrance as the others had to be removed.


I combined acid etching with hand engraving. The idea was for the background to be obscured for privacy.
I had another commission for my favourite glass, the Tudor Crystal bowl. This time for a 5oth wedding anniversary. The brief was the house, the crest, lots of bunnies and ducks, 3 different flowers and lettering around the base. I absolutely loved designing and engraving it and of course the quality of the crystal is just superb to work with! This bowl is 10"wide x 7" tall and so heavy. A large gentleman customer tried to pick one up with one hand the other day and couldn't!



This flower was engraved under the base.



A gentleman at the golf club I belong to (Halesworth) sadly passed away recently and this vase was commissioned by his widow, a floating trophy which will be played for annually. I will engrave the winners name on the back each year.. The scene is the 18th green and some of the plants by the practice putting green which is situated nearby.
I took loads of photos and used a bit of artistic licence to create the scene so all can be seen in this composition. The vase was a very thick, heavy, stunning Da Vinci lead crystal , 12" tall.


Staying with the golf theme, my local football club (Spexhall Huntsman and Hounds) held their annual fund raising event at Halesworth Golf Club, and once again I was asked to provide and engrave all the main prizes which went down to 6th place and included teams of 4 and individual prizes. I played in this event, it was a stunning day, (no I didn't win any of the glass, we missed the prizes by one shot!) , great fun, beautiful weather and on a course that is always in the most impressive condition!


I have the great pleasure of engraving another set of my African Big5 plus one. Always very nostalgic. I have been engraving these for 27 years and I wonder how the engraving has changed!!!


Well that is my news for now. I hope the sun is shining for you wherever you are.