Celestial World Tree - Part 2

 

Welcome back to the next installment of this project. Let us jump right on in with this journey, shall we? Where we left off in Celestial World Tree - Part 1, I explained my thought process for what I wanted to do with the box, the brainstorming and rough design work for the project.

Cutting, Sanding, Glueing and Screwing

Sanded, Glued & Screwed

My wonderful father was certainly a huge help with this part since there was so many pieces that needed work. When I explained what I needed done, he was more then willing to lend his assistance. He was able to cut out the center logo of the lid while keeping the outlined circle intact then went ahead and followed my measurements for the interior panel and cut it out for me. I cut the back piece that was meant for the lid and made sure that the whole thing would be able to slide into position if the box was to be closed. Then onto the sanding! Going from a 220 to a 400, I made sure that various pieces were smooth. This also was the time I repeatedly test fitted the interior panel to see where I needed to sand a bit more for a better fit. The piece for the lid was glued into position and I waited overnight before doing another test fit. Luckily I had plenty of frame hooks at my disposal for the box and my father had tiny eye-hooks in his own stash of bits and bobs so that I could get those in place.

Working on Lines

Defining the Lines

Looking back at my rough sketches for the designs, there was a lot scribbles in spots that I knew I needed to rework before I transferred them to the wood. Grabbing another piece of paper, I measured out the sizes before using a light box to carefully trace the shapes. The design for the internal panel wasn't bad and only needed a couple of fixes. The lid, however, had a couple of elements that needed some reworking. Once done, taped transfer paper and the designs to their respective pieces and began the transferring process. Of course, once again the lid was being the problem child of this en-devour. I actually had to do the lid's design transfer in two parts – First had to cut the center of the design out and set it aside, transfer the outer design first then go back and do the center. There was probably a better way to do it but too late now.

Prep and Wait

Now that the transferring was done, I carefully looked over everything. Normally with my wood pieces I could go straight for coloring with my Prismacolor color pencils. However for the feel I wanted to go with, watercolors would be involved as well. Of course this meant that I needed to prep the wood first. So once I made sure my surfaces were clean and ready, painted on a layer of Transparent Watercolor Ground. With such things, make sure to wait the allotted 24 to 48 hours, depending on how thick or how many layers you've put on. Once I made sure that the surfaces were completely covered with as even a coat as possible, I set them aside to dry over night and contemplated my next batch of steps. At this point I will be keeping my fingers crossed that when I have in my head will be able to be made real. Guess we'll all find out in the next installment. Stay tuned!