Guild School Castine 2015

With Guild school 2016 rapidly approaching I realized I've not shown last shown year's event yet. The event is held in Castine and in 2015 Elizabeth Gazmuri was teaching for the first time.

I was thrilled I got in her class, and her project revolved around making dove tails. Not by hand, which is a common method in miniature, but with the aid of power tools.

The construction of the carcass was very straight forward and followed traditional and proofed joinery. Not surprisingly the carving of the feet was fun to do too!

Then it was on to making the drawers. The dovetails were made using a variety of jigs and a sequence of cuts, some with a tilted saw blade, others with a jig at an angle to the blade. At this stage it was eminent to keep focused and concentrated. One 'slip' of attention and you could do all dozens of cuts all over again :/  

It goes too far (and beyond my capacity) to explain how it's done but here's a few pictures to show you how accurate and precise power tools, combined with well thought out jigs and steady hands can create such delicate joinery. 

The result were amazing; crisp and even dovetails as if they were made in real life scale. 

After assembly and a few coats of finish the photo etched hardware could be mounted.

Here's a view on another class; all concentrated at work, learning new techniques or improving on them while having fun (&) creating some fabulous miniatures.

Here's some new Artisans. Always fabulous to see their admission pieces. 

Elisabeth Winters

Sherri MacRaild

And Mario Sergio Ramos Pastrana

Castine is just this gorgeous little sea side village, if you're into miniatures (and love lobster! :)) I can highly recommend trying to get there, even if it's only once in your life. In relation to that it's good to know that each year a IGMA offers scholarships for those who could benefit from attending but have a lack of means. Six years ago I was a beneficiary of that same program myself, during a time I'd just started out making mini's. It inspired me so much, I try to make it ever since! So if you read this and think 'I'd love to go and attend' check out the link! 

 The miniatures you'll get to enjoy are lovely.

And here are some class results.

Tine Krijne's book binding projects.

Dianiela Kiefhaber's little dancer by Degas.

Ann High's spice cupboard.

Mark Murphy's cupboard class.

Mary Grady O'Brien's painted tin ware.

Bill Studebaker's cabinet,

and finally Deb Mackie's leather trunk

There was way more to enjoy, and so much more than I can capture in pics too, but I hope you've enjoyed the one's I've put up.