The Mirror

Nikki had wanted a full length mirror for a long time, but it was one of those things that you think of when you’re nowhere near one, and then when you see one you want, they want silly money for it. Anyway good people, this is where my relationship with carving began. One afternoon I was sitting around daydreaming about things I wanted to do but never seemed to have time for. I found myself sketching ideas for a full length dressing mirror for Nikki. Here are the sketches I did. 

[Concept sketches for the mirror]

There came a point where I decided I’d have a crack at making it and I was fascinated, once again, with some of the beautiful mdf carvings I’d seen recently (Unitec Marae). The day I started using powertools to carve was the day I started carving. Ha! I can guess what some of you might be thinking. And yes, I had originally thought of keeping it real, doing it the old fashioned way etc. But inversely, I decided, rightly or wrongly, that had the artisans had access to power tools back in the dark ages, they would have been firing up their jigsaws and angle grinders before you could say ‘architrave’. I also have so many ideas that impatience got the better of me, and I found that speeding up the process meant I could manifest more ideas more quickly.

All pieces are made mostly from mdf (medium density fibreboard). Other parts are made from pine.  I’m predominantly using a handheld jig-saw and angle grinder to create and carve the initial shapes ( I don’t have any specialist or large format pro tools). Anyway, they’re then sanded, stained and polyurethaned. I always sketch the design first, usually directly onto the raw board before cutting. I’ve made a couple of pieces that weren’t right, which I’ve shelved. Here's a photo of the feet.

[Mirror foot]

Both feet were carved from mdf sheet. The top one is ready for staining. The bottom foot is shown in the state before sanding.

Here is the frame itself. This was constructed from one complete piece of mdf sheet. The 1200mm x 600mm sheet cost about $11(NZD) at the local hardware store. This was the first part of the mirror that I made.  Congratulations, you guessed it, a flower theme! We have a Hibiscus tree outside our bedroom window, hence the central flower at the top. I quickly discovered that before you start hacking away at your first carving, you need a design theme. That design theme needs to flow through the entire project. I decided that sketching the entire project was the best thing to do. BUT, I also discovered that as I got further into it, I had new ideas to try that I hadn’t considered at the outset. I decided early on, to allow myself to deviate from the initial design, so that it gave me the freedom to develop new ideas and techniques.

So this is the finished frame. Obviously, it needs a sheet of mirror glass which I’ll add as the last thing. Note the profiled vertical sides done with a handheld plunge router. The drawn flowers didn’t turn out the way I wanted - a bit of a bummer! However, as a first carving project, I’m actually really pretty stoked with how it’s turning out.

Below is an image of the finished foot. The design is my own. It’s no claim to fame, but as it’s the first heavily carved thing I’ve made in my life, I’m generally pleased with it. It has 2 different coloured stains to achieve the ‘antique’ look, and a couple of brushed coats of semi-gloss clear polyurethane.

[Finished mirror foot]

A Tip to improve your relationship and general well-being

For those guys who struggle to get enough cave time to satisfy those primal carving urges:  

Make something nice for your wife/girlfriend/partner.

It’s a bit sneaky, I know, and my project didn’t start out like that. I quickly realised that the times when Nikki poked her nose into the garage to see what I was doing, she’d become quite excited. “Look what I made you”, I’d say, waving around a finished mirror foot. “It’s got a flower theme, what do you think”? I always get a fairly generous helping of “ooohs” and “aaahs” and general ‘A level’ compliments. There you are you see, everyone’s happy!

So, you’re still with me? Great! If you haven’t guessed already, this is a work in progress. I’m pondering the cross-bar. The cross-bar joins to the verticals at the bass. The first one I made (shown below) was too elaborate, but it is evident that I’m now able to carve more interestingly than I could 6 weeks ago when I started this. This is the last piece to make before I put it all together. I’ll have to update this on the next blog. I’m going to make something less elaborate but not sure what yet.

Thanks for hanging in there with me on this fairly long blog. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve got a lot of other project ideas in the wings and these will be the focus of following blogs. I wanted to add one final thing. Dreaming and creating in this manner is an extremely satisfying pastime. Why? Because I work at my own pace and it’s a fantastic stress release after a shitty day at work. It also requires patience, and patience is something I need more practise on J. But there’s more than that. You can create something beautiful, which you can then pass on to someone else if you want. Finally, I’m doing this blog because I’ve never kept a diary on anything in my life! When I first got interested in this several months ago, I struggled to find helpful information on the web. So, if you’re digging this, then I hope this is helpful information. Feel free to post questions and I’ll reply in my subsequent posts.

Amos