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Fishy drawers .....

Over the last few weeks I've been teaching a class of students how to cut out and make a set of drawers with a typically Asian style, curved top.
I love teaching classes because the basic construction of the articles is always the same for every student but they all have such wonderful ideas on different variations of  colour and decorations for their pieces. One of them will be in red, another in a dark colour with bright primary coloured decorations inside the drawers, another in a black with a light textured paper inside the drawers and yet another in pale lemon  patterned and plain papers . 
 

Colours and papers have been chosen and they are now in the process of putting everything together but in the meantime, I thought that I'd show you what I am doing with the sample piece that I'm working on with them.
I decided on a fishy theme. When I'm making a piece I don't always know exactly what it'll look like when I'm finished but I especially liked this cutout of a carp so I wanted to use it and began with just this decoration.

Then, I felt it needed some waves on the front of the drawers so I found a book and adapted the picture to make a cutout to fit the drawers.  I then finished it off with some waterlilies inside the bright yellow drawers.

My piece is  still a work in progress as it is for my students but I'll post some photos of their amazing designs as time goes on.





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