Article
My Favourite Marquetry Tools
Gabriella Blakey
1 March 2025
There are not many tools I use for my marquetry art work.
My favourite Marquetry tools
The above photograph shows the items which are essential to all my works in progress: tracing paper for transferring the design
onto wood veneers, a woodblock for cutting the veneers, PVA glue, ribbons, a pencil, and small scalpel knives.
The time I spend creating a design for a picture or a box is a pleasantly relaxing intellectual process.
Once I am fully happy with the design, I then get on with the physical labour.
In my studio
Marquetry by its nature produces a tangible graphic image. The whole
process is governed by accurate cutting of the veneer inlays using smooth—strait or curved—crisp lines,
and then finally setting them in place with glue.
Coasters
The above design for a set of coasters, is an ideal project to start with. Here, the inlays are relatively large and regular
in shape so easier for any beginner to manage and glue into place.
As confidence and one's ambition grows, the work can quickly become complex with much more delicate preparation and cutting required, illustrated by the horse below.
First, it's important to construct a depression on the base or background before inserting inlay pieces in place.
Horse
If not careful, it can easily get sticky and unclean where many delicate pieces of inlay sit together!
To cut the various veneers, I use a small surgical knife or scalpel. After cutting several
depressions I'll often need to change the blades which otherwise will soon get blunt. Retaining sharpness is key!
I hold my scalpel between my thumb and my index finger as if holding an artist's paint brush.
With these simple tools, and with lots of practice and patience, I continue, contentedly, to express myself in
this fine medium of Marquetry.
In praise of the Tuplip
Author
Gabriella Blakey studied graphic design in Rome where she worked as a book illustrator before continuing in Paris. She moved to Edinburgh, where in 1984 she became a member of the Scottish Craft Centre exhibiting painted furniture and objets d'art, with pictorial compositions at several galleries including the Solstice Gallery in Edinburgh, Broughton Gallery near Biggar, and the Carnell Exhibition, Kilmarnock in aid of the Red Cross. Gabriella came to Oxford and joined the Oxfordshire Craft Guild in 1993 and attended the Ashmolean Museum as Gallery Lecturer.
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Contact Gabriella by Email:
gabriellablakeyartist@gmail.com