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

AFI Art Pumpkins

Two pumpkins I've made based on AFI album art.  See all my pumpkin carving posts. 

DIY Richard Castle 'WRITER' Vest Costume

For all my costume posts, click here.  

This Halloween I'm going as Castle (from the show Castle), and to do so required making his 'WRITER' printed bullet-proof vest. 

Supplies:
-Dark Blue Vest
-Dark Blue Cloth (I used a light weight denim)
-White Screen-Printing ink and a paint brush
-Safety Pins

I cut out four pieces of fabric - two large ones for the writing and two smaller ones for fake chevrons. The larger pieces were 11.5 x 4 inches, and the smaller pieces are 9 x 3.5 inches. The smaller pieces are long so that they can wrap over the shoulders. 





I used 'Impact' font in Microsoft Word as it appeared to be the closest to what is used in the show.  I traced the text off my computer using a pencil.  Then I hand-painted the words using screen-printing ink.  I let them dry, then ironed the pieces before attaching them to the vest. I iron both sides for a few minutes, with the cloth under a piece of a paper bag. 
Click here for my full article on screen printing.

I safety-pinned the pieces onto the vest, and to each other to help keep them from flapping over. 


The rest of the costume consists of jeans and a long-sleeve blue button up shirt.  Going simple this year. 

More White Board Drawings

 Some doodles I've been doing on whiteboards lately