With snow in the forecast this past week, I knew I had to come up with some indoor projects to work on. Sometimes I go down to my craft/work room and just look at the supplies that I have and see what inspires me in the moment. This week, my cut and sanded wood slices were calling to me.
I had a plan to make a bunny using different sizes of wood slices. I used two small slices for the feet, a larger oval one for the body and a medium sized round one for the head. I couldn’t find skinny oval ones to be ears but I did have some scrap paint brush handles that worked well enough. I used Weldbond to glue the pieces together and let it dry overnight. The next day I used my wood burner to burn on a face.
The bunny looked a tad naked so I added a few colour adornments to brighten it up and placed it in an Easter basket.
I really enjoy burning on this wood that we cut from a tree on our property. For some reason we had already sanded the face of the wood but I needed to remove the grinder marks from the curved side where the bark had been. I froze my fingers in the cold garage sanding it down with my mouse sander.
It was worth the effort as the colours that come out of this wood are beautiful.
I burned in the outline of this scene and then spent some time painting in the detail. For some reason I find small detail painting to be quite relaxing. The last step, mostly to bring out the colours in the wood, was to add a few coats of matte Polycrylic.
In my mind, gnomes should not only be associated with Christmas. I like to have holiday themed gnomes for every holiday. I thought this Easter truck with gnomes was cute so I recreated it onto a 6” wood slice. Once again, I burned in the outline and then added paint.
I will likely leave this one without any finish. This wood ends up showing blotchy patches and sometimes takes away from what I put on it.
I was using a bought plastic palette for my different paints. It was only after I was done that Chris suggested for me to use a wet palette. Basically a plastic container with a lid that sits only about an inch high. You put in a few layers of paper towel and wet them just till saturated, pouring off any extra water. On top of the paper towel, you add one piece of parchment paper and smooth it out pressing out any air. When you put a paint drop on it, the moisture beneath the parchment paper keeps your paint from drying out and yet it does not bleed into the paper towel below. Apparently he used this method when he was painting his Flames of War miniatures years ago. He says that the paint left in the sealed container could be used for up to a month before drying out. I will have to try this method and see if that holds true. At least my paint won’t dry up when I take a break to make supper like my paint did this time.
I have only one more Easter/spring project in mind that I will likely work on this week. It involves using tiny sticks to create a piece of art in a recycled picture frame. I do need to collect said sticks in the next few days as spring flooding is only days away. Our pond went from this to this in the last seven days. The water is almost to the top and there is A LOT of snow left to melt.
Love the bunny!