I came up with the idea to make door plaques for my niece and nephews since my sister[inlaw] and brother were in the process at the time of buying a house [their first]. I got started at the end of July with my dad buying a slab of wood from Rona and cut it in half than sanded the pieces... .......... Than curved the edges with my sander since the pointed edges looked lame and pathetic.
My nephew Ronan is now a year old and loves lions so I found this lion online and thought it was adorable and so him.
And my 7 year old nephew LOVES Mario...than as I'm trying to figure which super mario to use he asked me if I could include Bowser.. well than made everything alot easier! I grabbed these 2 images off google and flipped this image of bowser so he's looking up at mario instead of off the plaque lol.
I mixed the background with a bit of white to lighten it up but after I finished painting up the characters I had a few oops spots [red painted brush spun out of my hands, black paint dripped or my fingers touched a spot and I diddn't notice, etc] So I had to try and match the colour.......... it didn't work well.. so I ended up repainting the whole thing..if you nose to nose with it and turn it into the light you can actually see darker and lighter spots... but anyways.
I was using paintbrushes from a dollar store to paint on the background and realized that was a HUGE no-no...I tried and tried to get the loose bristles that painted into the background off but..sadly some still remain.. so I ran up and grabbed my foam brushes from Rona [for a different project involving stain.. so ya.. I'll need to buy some more.. lol] and finished it off.
Ah but before that I used canned white primer from Krylon.. omigod... I hate that crap! I couldn't tell if it was going on right.. I could actually see it as the wood was pretty pale to begin with but it looked like someone sneeze a tiny bit of powdered sugar on it but not completely.. so needless to say I'll buy a bucket of white primer paint next time and paint it on myself.. I love painting and hate spray cans..lol.
So I painted this outside in the middle of the july/august heatwave..hung from my clothes line with bungee cords... lmao so those are now forever painted pink and blue [I painted my nieces plaque at the same time but put it aside to work on my nephews']. And everytime I was done painting for the day with my nephews I'd hang it from the faux chandelier in our old kitchen.. with the bungee cords...... so there's blue paint in the chandelier from me stopping myself from getting blue paint in the face from the thing spinning around..ugh.
Anywho! My dad said I should use grandpa's [he died in 2003] paintbrushed he used to use for his woodcarving.. so after some tears and memories on my part I finally came down with his box of paintbrushes [very expensive i may add lol] and got to work. I also used carbon paper he had used to trace on the images [I tried the newsprint idea someone used online but it wasn't dark enough for me too see]. The text I got using my paintshop pro program and simple printed it off.
And got to work. I'd spend maybe 4-7 hours each sitting but I'd have to wait for things to dry than my sister needed me too come over and help her pack or sort out stuff for the sally ann or keep etc. So it took until 4 days ago to finish [well to tell the truth I'm not finished I need a nice clear day to spray on the clear coat but still all the painting is done]. I think I started painting a week before my nephew ronan's first birthday [aug 23] so.. maybe august 17. I'm thinking I sat down and pulled out the table maybe 10-15 times so it was that long really it was just the fact or stopping to help them pack, clean the house for them to visit a few times, cleaning my room, storage room, etc; that made it take so long to finish.
They move oct 1-3 and I STILL have to start and finish my nieces plaque [princess peach a la paper mario, hello kitty and lot of dessert, lol should be a little easier. ........ minus peach!]
ENJOY!
This is far from perfect but I think it's pretty good coming from a person with very shaky hands, lol♥
