Celestial World Tree - part 1

For those who have been following me on social media for some time may know that in between projects, I will go ahead and create altar boxes or mixed media art pieces from the various scrap wood/ wooden boxes I have. Well it's that time again but this time I will be taking you with me on this journey. So grab a beverage, some snacks and prepare for an interesting little trip through the process since I have no idea how many parts this is going to take.

Bits and pieces of the box

In the beginning, there was a box...

This particular box I've had in my stash for a number of years. It was the container for a particular brand of perfume and instead of a hinged lid like most boxes I acquire from salvage, this one actually slid into place. I knew I wanted to do something special with this but not sure what. The logo and information on the lid was branded in so any deep sanding would ruin the integrity of the wood since it was thin. Gessoing would not only loose the color of the wood but even through the process, there would be a faint indent of where the logo was. It took me some time of pondering (close to 2 months in the back of my mind while working on other things) to realize a simple solution to my problem – Just cut out the center logo. Well that certainly took care of that issue but now the next part of this insanity. The brainstorming and planning.

To the drawing board

Now that I have the center taken out of the lid, what was it that I wanted this box to be? I realized that I wanted to make this into a 2-part wall hanging art piece. The box itself with the lid in place could be one art piece but if the potential owner wanted to have the inside on display as well, the lid could be removed and hung as it's own art piece while the work inside the box could be displayed. Perhaps one of my more ambitious ideas for a project like this but

Rough draft concepts & brainstorming

I just couldn't stop myself. So away I went with roughly sketching out the concept designs along with brainstorming how I would need to trouble shoot some things. A lot of trial and error with a ton of erasing occurred just in the designs alone. Of course I will need to refine the designs before I work on transferring them to their respective positions but that's to be expected. The designs themselves may end up being mixed media with a combination of watercolor, ink and color pencil but I haven't quite fine tuned that thought process as of yet. 

Figuring out the pieces

So my first batch of things I needed to figure out while referencing my mad scribbling was how the design for the lid would work. I realized that I would need to secure a piece of wood on the back so the part of the design that was meant for the circle would be recessed. Luckily I had some thin pieces on hand that I could easily shape just larger then the hole for what I wanted to do. Covering up the bottom information would be a totally different endeavor which would include small paper floral leaves to cover it up. The design itself I would need to make sure didn't go all of the way to the edge so that the lid could still side in and out of the notches of the box without getting stuck or just not being able to be slid in. Hanging was the easier of the issues to sort out which was the use of a small eye-hook which would later be decorated and have a tassel from which it could be hung on the wall from.

The box itself was a little easier then the lid to sort out the mechanics with. A picture hook hanger on the back would allow it to hang from the wall without issue while another small eye-hook at the bottom would allow for some decorative tassel and charms to hang. The interior art work would be on a separate panel of thin wood/plywood which could be installed once it was time to get everything assembled. Of course there was going to be a lot of sanding in my future but hey, that's just how it is with this sort of thing. Now time to get started on getting all of these elements created and fitted. Stay tuned, folks!