The Craftiest Workshop

After I recently made these three log pieces of The Winnie the Pooh Parade, the Seven Dwarfs and The Fellowship of the Ring, Chris suggested I should do a map.

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Of course the map of Middle Earth and the Marauder’s Map came to mind but I decided to do the Hundred Acre Woods.
There is something about Winnie the Pooh.
It makes me feel nostalgic; not only about my own childhood but also from when my children were small.

The character personalities are so different.
I bet you can picture someone in your life that fits each one.

I decided to recreate little scenes at the different character’s houses and place them on a map. Chris prodded me endlessly until I started working on it.

First I found scenes online, in storybooks and colouring books and then drew them onto tracing paper.
Then I put the individual scenes onto the piece of wood using carbon paper.
Sometimes the imperfections of the wood dictated where the different home scenes would go.

After getting the basic picture onto the wood, I set about adding definition and shading to everything except the characters.
Not sure why, but I didn’t capture a pic of Eeyore’s gloomy place at this point and Pooh’s honey tree was an after thought.

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Taking a break from burning, I brought out the paint.
I added colour giving the characters life.

Another suggestion from Chris was to add some music so I put the lyrics and sheet music from the theme song in the middle of the piece.

Can you can sing the tune?

At this point I felt as though something was missing so I hunted for some quotes that the different characters said in books or movies.

I also started to make a path showing where they walked. The foot prints looked too much like a cribbage board at first so I added more shading and dabbing with the burner until I was satisfied with it.

Here is the end result before adding sealer.

A donkey named Eeyore is his friend.

And Kanga and little Roo

There’s Rabbit… (Rabbitz Howse)

And Piglet…

And there’s Owl

But most of all Winnie the Pooh

I couldn’t leave out Tigger

And Pooh’s honey tree

I think that all of us feel some sort of affection for Winnie the Pooh. It reminds us of innocence and whimsical childhood days.

I haven’t decided what to do with this wood project but I it will end up somewhere in our home for now.