Here
you'll find some unusual NFS (not for sale) items displayed and details
on some of our corporate project work. Everything from providing a
range of themed framed prints for clubs or offices to designing an
amazingly
unusual dining room table. If you need art prints, posters, a
commissioned piece for a special project or to liven up your company's
offices then click the 'Contact Us' button on the left and let us know
what you are trying to achieve and we'll do all we can to help.
THE
AMAZING DRAGON TABLE
Have
you ever dreamed of something amazing?
Here is a dream that was turned into reality by Artists
UK
using the talents of renowned dragon artist Peter Pracownik and
well-known specialist furniture designer Neil Busby
It
all started with football. Yes, football, strange as it may
sound
since you don't usually find football and dragons mentioned in the same
breath,
firey or not.
A football team might defeat their opponents but they don't
usually barbecue them. On the other hand, although a dragon
is arguably the prototype for
the world's first portable flamethrower and pretty heavily built he
probably wouldn't make a good goalkeeper. But, the fact is that
there is a certain famous premiership
footballer who has a passion for dragons and he decided he wanted to
have his dining room based on his favourite theme. Apart from
the
main motivation of the glory of the game and perfecting one's skills,
football in the premier league also has its financial rewards, so he
knew
he could make his dream come true if only he could find someone he
could trust to undertake the project...
Eventually,
he found Neil Busby, a specialist furniture designer with a repertoire
of unique creations based around unusual and innovative ideas.
There was no doubt Neil could do the job except for one
slight
snag ... Neil had masses of knowledge about making tables but very
little idea how to design an authentic dragon. So he in turn
went
in search of someone who would have access to this field of knowledge.
His search, unsurprisingly, brought him to Artists UK and we
confirmed that we knew several artists who know as much about dragons
as he does about furniture. Our choice in the end was the
internationally renowned artist Peter Pracownik. Not only is
he
steeped in Celtic lore with a library full of reference books but he
had also designed dragons for three dimensional modeling. A
project brief was drawn up and then Neil and Peter sat down
together to plan out how it would work. This is how the first
sketch of the dragon turned out and pretty amazing it is in its own
right.
However,
it soon became clear that supporting the huge sheet of glass on four
contact points was not the best solution so some revisions to the
design were made as shown below.
Once
the final details had been worked out it was then down to Neil to draw
up the final plan that would go to the carvers. Shown below
are
the plans that were drawn up by Neil based on Peter Pracownik's designs
for
the dragon dining table and the dragon chair.
He also constructed a place layout
showing how the chairs
would be arranged round the table with their place settings, as shown
below.
Although it is conceivably possible to
carve from one piece of timber it is rarely practical with a large
project like this so the dragon was carved in parts and then assembled
as you can see below where the dragon is being tested for supporting
the glass table top. As you will notice, the craftsmanship is
so good you can't see a join anywhere.
The next step was to add the finishes to
turn it into a real dragon. In the following photo the dragon
is almost ready for shipping to his new home.
The last touch was the addition of
the jewelled eyes to give him a truly fiery gaze!
Here is the dragon table from the front
view in the dining room. If he flames now the photographer
gets frizzled! Notice the great shadow on the back wall.
Now there is a photograph below of the
dragon
table from the back and to one side in the dining room.
Here you can really see the stunning craftsmanship of the
piece and how realistic and striking the dragon is crouched under the
table top.
Here is the dragon table from the top in
the dining room with the full seating of the twelve dragon motif chairs
that complement the table.
If
you would like to see other artwork by Peter Pracownik then click
here.
If you would like to see more unique
furniture by Neil Busby then click
here.
Visiting
David Wyatt sometime back we took the opportunity to
photograph (with
his permission obviously!) two of his original paintings that are not
usually seen. Here they are for you to enjoy! Clicking on each image
will take you to different sections of the Artists UK main website
where you'll see more of David Wyatt's work including original
illustrations for the book 'The Hobbit' by JRR Tolkien.
Images
copyright David Wyatt.
We
were not so lucky in visiting Stephen Bradbury whose current projects
are all rather hush hush. Unfortunately, he's never got round to the
idea of having prints published of the Julian May book covers he is so
famous for either. That's why you sadly don't find any prints of his
work at Artists UK. But, with landscape
like this you can see why he always feels inspired -
and
although that is not Mr Bradbury down there on the bench this is him
here looking very inspired -
We
decided that we would not shock you by showing you the great giant he
has captured on the other end of these chains -