This was a commissioned piece. Our client requested a West Texas landscape, with a cowboy on his horse. 

 

While researching sky treatments in marquetry, we came across a piece by an LA artist, Patrice LeJeune, which employed an old French technique called ‘fusion’. Unlike traditional marquetry, which fits neatly together like a puzzle, the fusion process overlaps the veneers. You then sand and scrape the edges until they become transparent, or in some cases, sanding all the way through to reveal the veneer below. The result is a much more ‘painterly’ effect with no hard lines. We used this technique (our first time) in the sky of this piece while sticking to traditional marquetry in the foreground. The contrast also helped to create the illusion of the foreground being closer to the viewer. We added some of the critters
you might really see in this landscape in the corner pieces just for fun!