Quest Box

This trinket box wants to give you a quest!

Or maybe it holds a reward inside. OR maybe it wants to reward you and then give you another quest! You won't know until you open it up!

I hand-painted this little box using two shades of brown acrylic paint (to simulate a wood stain while giving me better control over shading), and then added details using a high-quality gold paint and black to create shadows. The gold corners gives it that campaign-style touch like tiny metal brackets. I thought about making the question mark yellow, but I liked the gold so much I decided to stick with it instead of adding another color.

Gears Coffin Trinket Box

This box mixes Steampunk with Art Nouveau.

My inspiration began with the woodwork in this Art Nouveau hutch.

I spray-painted the box flat black (after covering the hardware with blue painter's tape), penciled on the details, then added metallic purple paint and finished it off with highlights in silver.

This coffin box is the perfect size to fit a little Justice League Superman action figure.

A Bouquet of Tentacles

A vase of flowers becomes an excellent pencil holder, especially when your pencils are topped with handmade tentacles in a complementary color.

I molded these tentacles by hand (much as one would sculpt dough) and detail-painted them. I don't know how I came up with the idea, I just think tentacles are cool. They evoke monsters/aliens while bringing a pleasant organic shape to everyday decor.

TARDIS Trinket Box

So, I had extra plain wooden boxes on hand and I was thinking, how can I make a wooden box totally geeky?

Duh. (Forehead smack moment.) The TARDIS.

If you don't know what a TARDIS is, go watch an episode of Doctor Who. It's probably available on On Demand.

So anyway, after smothering the box with all-purpose sealer, I started painting it blue. Then I had to figure out where to put the windows. I decided not to be completely literal with the TARDIS design but to work with the shape of the box.
To make the windows I lightly brushed on white paint in a couple of coats - I didn't want to go completely opaque because the windows needed some depth. Then I drew the black lines with a black Sharpie marker.

Then I thought, wouldn't it be fun if there was chalkboard paint on the top so I could write messages? So I taped off a grid and spray-painted on the chalkboard paint.

On the inside (which is not bigger, alas), I used hot glue to glue down a rectangle of white felt. This gives a nice soft padded bottom to the inside of the box, which is a nice touch for trinket boxes, especially if you plan to fill them with jewelry like a pendant, brooch, or cocktail ring.

 

Painted Trinket Boxes

This is a super-easy craft for any skill level! It's also an excellent introduction to wood painting.

Design ideas are endless... above I started with a plain wooden box, painted it brown, then gave it some Steampunk flavor with metallic copper and gold paints and a little brushed-on blue.

You find everything you need at your local craft store (both Michael's and JoAnn's carries these):

• small wood box ($1)
• 1 tube of All-Purpose Sealer (for preparing wood surfaces). Brand I used: Delta Ceramcoat
• Acryllic paints in desired colors (comes in tubes, about 89 cents and up)
• Paint brushes (for acryllic paint, use nylon bristles, not natural hair) - 1 detail brush, one 1/2-centimeter wide flat brush, squared or angled
• Sand paper
• Mod Podge (for finishing coat, if desired)
• disposable cup with water
• paper towel (for wiping brushes)
• a palette (can use a clean piece of scrap plastic or cover a small dish with plastic wrap)

Directions:

1. Sand down any splinters and rough spots.
2. Apply one coat of sealer to the outside sides and top of the box, let dry
3. Paint! Let dry between coats.
4. Finish with Mod Podge, if desired. Only apply Mod Podge to the top and sides, do not cover the inside or bottom because the surface can stick.

Try these fun variations:

• Hot-glue a rectangle of felt to the inside bottom.
• Hot-glue a tiny mirror onto the inside of the lid.
• Use chalkboard paint on the top so you can write messages on it!
• Mod Podge a collage of pictures or scrapbook paper on the box.
• Paint a box blank, then add rub-on metallic paint to make it look like metal
• Add glitter! (apply with white glue)

Kraken Got Your Card?

It's a business card holder. No, really...

Kinda random, right?
I was thinking, for that someday when I have my own artist table I will need an eye-catching place to put my stack of business cards. What's more eye-catching than a couple of purple tentacles?

I had a bit of foam leftover from my [Staff of Infinite Mysteries] and Riven projects. I started by sketching a rough shape on the foam with a pen, then carving the foam with a hot knife. First I carved the shape with a long wire knife, the kind they sell to cut floral arrangement foam. Then I carved the details with a smaller, sharp, angled hot knife.

Then I attacked it with sandpaper.

When working with foam like this, you can cut a very rough shape, then fine-tune the shape with rough sandpaper and finish with a finer sandpaper. This foam is very easy to shape by sanding.

After sanding, I applied a quick coat of white primer.

Painting was an experiment with purple, black and white acryllic paints to get the desired look.

Business cards fit easily in between the grasping tentacles!

Steampunk Dragon Dude

WHY, HELLO THERE!

Meet my new friend. He began his life as one of the Color Blanks, lounging on a clearance shelf at Target, all pale and pasty white... until I brought him to life with acrylics and a paintbrush!

Will he soon be joined by new friends?

Help me name this little guy. Post a reply with your suggestions!

Willow on the Water

I finished this painting on July 3, 2009. Then I gave it to my sister because she likes pink and green.

It's a willow tree on the edge of a little green river with a forest on the opposite bank. I liked the pink accent color against the greens so I added some flowers. I liked how the forest looked even before I painted the willow on top of it; maybe I will do another painting sometime just of a forest.

We raided Ulduar the night before, wiping for three hours while trying to kill Thorim on Hard Mode.

I set up my little easel in front of my second monitor and painted while raiding. I was healing (look, it's Grid!) but I don't think I let anyone die. Raid leaders talk a LOT, which meant a LOT of downtime between boss fights while they discuss strategy... which meant a lot of time for painting!

Painted Trees

When I tried my first paintings on canvas it was because I found some canvases on sale. Normally I just use my acrylics to paint little wood boxes, plastic blasters and Jedi comlinks, little things like that. So for my first painting on actual canvas I decided to try and learn from one of my favorite artists, Eyvind Earle.

I started painting the background and just layered on the green then mixed in some black and came in from the edges with strokes to look like grass or vines.

After getting the background the way I wanted it and letting it dry, I found a picture of an Eyvind Earle painting online and basically tried to copy the look of the tree without getting quite as detailed. His lines are too painstakingly perfect for my amateur ability so I took a more impressionistic approach and focused more on getting the idea of the shadows and highlights conveyed. I like how it starts with a silhouette but adds the contrasting white highlights to give the tree some depth. I noticed that a lot of amateur artists are doing the black tree silhouette-on-a-colored background thing right now. It's easy and can look great in a modern room. I am still trying to figure out where to put it in my new house.

I received a request from a friend to do a tree painting for her after she saw the first one I did. This is what I came up with based off of the following criteria she presented me with:

- whimsical like the Eyvind Earle-style tree
- mysterious (not obvious) background
- light-colored background but not too light
- "green is good"

I started this one by painting the background. I liked how subtle vertical stripes fading into the background color can look like trees in a fog, so I started with fat green vertical stripes blending into a yellow background and then painted over them with another layer of yellow.

Next, I added in the grass in several layers of shades of green but decided that the grass really should be the foreground, so after painting on the tree silhouette I repainted a lot more grass over the bottom of the tree. The nice thing about painting grass this way is you can keep adding on as many layers as you want and it just gives the illusion of more depth.

It's now hanging on the wall in my friend's home up in Victoria, BC!

Into the Purple Woods

There is no place more magical than the forest home of the Night Elves, bathed in an aubergine haze beneath a giant tree.

Disclaimer: This was one of my first acrylic paintings, certainly my first landscape. I am totally cheap because I am using the paints you get for $0.89/tube at Michael's. Someday when my skill has improved I will invest in the nicer, more expensive acrylics.

I achieved a cool panoramic effect by using two square canvases side-by-side. Normally these are supposed to be positioned vertically on a skinny piece of wall between two doors.

I don't always do things the normal way.

I started with a screenshot of Teldrassil on my computer monitor and then painting the scene on the canvas beginning with the background and layering my way to the trees and rock in the foreground, trying different techniques in order to make it look like the representation on my monitor.

In case you happen to NOT be one of the millions who plays World of Warcraft and you are wondering "What the heck is Teldrassil?", I am happy to inform you that tTeldrassil is a setting in the game. You get to frolic in this purple forest for your first 8-to-10 levels, if you start the game as a Night Elf like I did the first time I played it. Actually, my first Night Elf character was a Rogue named Avalyn.

BTW Into the Woods is a really fun musical. If you ever get a chance to see it, go! I love the duet the princes sing, "Agony".