Conch Shell and Bird of Paradise Coloring Blanks

 Tropical themed coloring! Bird of Paradise flower and a Conch shell. 

Dinosaur Serving Plate

This is not actually my own project; my awesome friend Ashley made this for us as a wedding gift and gave me permission to share it with the world!  Surely a must-have for any dinosaur themed gala or event. 

The basic idea is very simple: Take a dinosaur toy (or any tall item, really), cut the top off, glue a serving platter onto the base, then glue the top back onto the tray.  They used an epoxy glue to make sure it has a solid attachment. 

The hardest part is getting a level cut so that the tray sits flat.  On the plus side, if your initial cut is a little off you can easily trim it up to make it flatter.  In this case, the arms of the dinosaur conveniently were at a level that they also support the plate.   

The other tricky aspect is balancing the plate.  The toy dinosaur makes a nice tripod with its feet and tail to support weight.  The majority of the plate sits over this tripod (behind the head) so that it doesn't tip forward when weight is added to the plate.  You want the center of your plate over the center of support of the toy, not the part you cut. 

For the painting/finish, make sure to use something food safe (if you're going to be serving food on it) or keep food away from the head! Paint/finish the head before attaching it to the plate to make sure you don't get your paint/finish on the plate itself.  You're ready to party!

I call him Alfred, the Dinosaur Butler.  

Chelonian Sketches

Some ink sketches of common Minnesotan turtles.  Clockwise from the top: Snapping, Painted, Soft-shelled.

Balsa wood Meeples

For a Christmas gift this past year I made some balsa wood meeples ('animeeples' to be specific).  These are extra pieces to be used with games such as Agricola, Settlers of Catan, etc that use small wooden tokens.  I made a herd of llamas, a family of elephants, and a quartet (?) of giraffes. 

I made them out of balsa wood because it is easy to shape and doesn't require owning a jigsaw.

At first I tried to directly carve the entire meeples.  This proved to be a slow and tedious process that unfailingly ended with me snapping a piece off the meeple (usually a neck or foot) because the balsa wood cracks easily.

The much easier way, I discovered, is to cut out just a very vague shape out of the balsa wood and then use sand paper to actually create all the fine details (indeed, the squarish thing above is all the more detail I cut with the Xacto knife!).  I used a heavier grit sandpaper for the initial shaping, then moved to finer grit for the finishing touches.  Make sure they can stand up on their own before you paint them!

The meeples were given two coats of paint to get a nice solid color, and then let dry.

I used a semi-gloss polyurethane to give them a good shine and also to make them a bit more durable.  I ended up doing 2-3 coats of polyurethane on the meeples (careful, too thick of polyurethane will start making them look yellow).

Green-Cheeked Conure

Green-Cheeked Conure, Water Color over Ink

DIY (Frog) Drawing on Onesies

My friend recently had a Onesie drawing party and I had a chance to try out some Crayola fabric markers!

Things I learned:

1) Put cardboard inside the onesie or the markers will bleed through to the other side!
2) You need to put a lot of ink into the drawing or it will fade very rapidly in the wash (even to the point of disappearing completely after a single wash!). I drew all the 'lines' as a series of dots to really make them dark.  This was also helpful because the fabric stretches under the marker if you try to draw a line, so the dot method keeps things in place
3) Iron the drawing before washing (set to 'cotton,' iron on the reverse side of the drawing) to help it stay permanent
4) Wash separately (the Crayola website says for at least 3 washes) so that you don't dye other clothing!
5) Buy enough markers! You can't make strong colors if you run out of ink!
6) Stencils are another option if you find some patterns you like!

This is a red-eyed tree frog onesie I made, complete with fake trademark.  I drew a black outline of the frog first, and then added in color.  The markers bled together a little, so there are some areas near the black lines where the color gets darker, but for the most part they worked well.  You can see in the blue areas that I was running low on ink so I couldn't get the color quite as strong as the green and orange. 

This is the Crayola site regarding their fabric markers:
http://www.crayola.com/crafts/shirt-stylz-craft/

There are other fabric marker brands out there, I just haven't had a chance to use them yet! I've drawn on shirts using permanent markers before (definitely wash separately the first few times!) and they do fade after a number of washes, so I'm hoping that using real fabric markers will mean greater longevity!

More White Board Sketches

White boards are a fun medium to play with because it is so easy to erase!

Red-Lored Amazon Parrot and Barred Owl: Water Color over Ink

Two drawings I did recently for some presentations.  The ink drawings were sketched, then scanned and printed out in smaller versions which I then water colored for the final product (which allows me to try again if I mess up the coloring).  I really like the final look of water-color over ink, and scanning and printing copies of the ink drawing lets you try out a variety of color options without losing the original! 

Free Coloring Sheet: Native Minnesota Birds

I realized recently I never put a printable version of this up! (left to right) Blue Jay, Cardinal, Chickadee, Downy Woodpecker, Purple Finch, Goldfinch.  More coloring sheets here. 

Budgerigar (Parakeet)

A budgerigar I drew for a Thank You card.  Hoping to eventually do a series of pet birds similar to my song bird drawings