Friday, May 24, 2013

What's the hold up?

I used to do hope chests that I'd carve celtic knotwork into and give them as wedding gifts. I bought the wooden chests and then dremel carved the designs and although they were a ton of work I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Then I got some bad reactions, a few friends got divorced so then I started to feel like they were bad luck or something equally dumb. I want to start back up again because I still need to make 2 more for brothers.

But here is what I used to do....






This is an internal music box movement. I can't remember what it plays.



I needed a pencil box for an art class and the only way I'd keep it and not give it away is if I put something weird on it. It's worked so far.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Kai's Map

I made this for his birthday and then had it laminated. I also grabbed some dry-erase markers so he can plan his own route to the buried treasure.

Tutorial on Instructables

** edit info update: It measures just under 2ft x 3ft because that's the largest size the laminator at Staples can take. I would do bigger if I could but it started ripping in some spots so I'd patch on the back and eventually I had to wrap it up and laminate.


Kai's Map
 
And the close ups:
 
Kai's Map


Kai's Map


Kai's Map


Kai's Map


Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map
 
Kai's Map

 

Monday, May 6, 2013

Map to the Stars

I started this one a few years ago but ran into some problems and it stalled. I decided to redo it completely and spent lots of time painting to make it right.



I started with some scrap wood I glued and screwed into a frame and then stapled some old dropcloth. I won't be using that again to paint on, it really does soak up the paint. I had to paint a lot of layers even after the gesso. I put down a night sky-y base and let it dry outside.




After it dried completely thanks to some warm weather, I took a 1" brush and ruined it completely by forcing the bristles to stipple all out. There's more layers of light and dark colors to give an impression of depth.

Starry Night


I took a much smaller brush and dotted the whole thing with stars. Then I grabbed one smaller and kept adding.
Starry Night


I was thinking of the milky way which is just a huge blobby line of stars and colors, so more stippling with white. I let it dry and then poked holes all over the painting and pushed through leds from a string light. During the day it looks like a chunk of the sky.

Starry Night


At night it's large dots of light. I still might add some fiber optics to it but for now I'm happy. I just have to figure out where to hang it.