Graffis Designs is moving

Graffis Designs has a new home at GraffisDesigns.com.  

If you found this blog, feel free to meander your way through but new content will be posted at the new site.  Thanks for stopping by!  I hope to see you at the new place.

String Art: Eye of Sauron

I'm catching up on posting project details.  The most recent post was about working on some string art projects with the kids.  I'll just continue unraveling the string art theme.

My oldest son just finished reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by Tolkien and my youngest son is working his way through The Hobbit.  I rewatched the film trilogy recently and they held up well.  I'm looking forward to the time I can watch the film trilogy with them.  There's not anything necessarily objectionable about the movies but they are intense to say the least.  My youngest daughter is 7 and it's difficult to find time, let alone the hours needed for the three LOTR movies, to watch something with a couple kids but not all of them.

This piece is modeled after that burning Eye of Sauron.  I real struggle with the design was getting the three depths of the tower without one set of nails interfering with another.  There at least a couple different heights on the nails so the strings could overlap.  I do wish I could've gotten the eye more fiery.  

12.75" x 10.75" x 1.5" (think shadow box depth). 

The frame is oak while middle piece is birch plywood.  Both are sealed in a matte, water-based clear-coat.  

Available for sale.

String Art with children

The kids needed an art project with recent downtime!  String art was a cool and fun option.  These are like the Personal Pan Pizza versions of string art.  The kids (and adults) each picked their own design and, for the most part, were able to do most of the nailing and stringing on their own.  If you work on this with your own kids, monitor them appropriately please.

Materials

1. Wood.  Something that's 3/4" thick is good.  I've used 1/2 boards in the past and they certainly work but 3/4 is only a little more pricey and I'm less worried I'll hammer through the board.  I had several feet of a poplar 1" x 6" leftover from another project.  
2. Dowel (optional)
3. Nails.  We already had some 1" ring shank nails.  You'll want a decent size head on the nail to keep the string from falling off (no trim nails, please).  Sometimes its good to push the string up or down the nail so a smooth shaft would probably be better.
4. String.  Preferably something like crochet thread or embroidery thread.
5. Wood finish of your choice (optional).  Poplar takes paint well but not so much stain.  We used Rust-oleum 2x Coverage spray paint (I love this paint!) of just polyurethane.
6. A design.  We pulled images off the interwebs.

Process

1. Prepare the wood
1. I had some 1" x 6" poplar and just kept the actual width of 5.5".  This was cut into 5.5" x 5.5" squares with a miter saw.  A handsaw would work too.
2. I drilled a hole about 1/2 deep in the back of the board approximated 1" from the bottom.  In this hole, we can insert a short piece of dowel as a stand/prop for the board once it's complete.
   
3. Sand the edges.  I didn't worry too much about getting the edges super smooth but I did sand to round the corners and edges a bit.  
4. Finish.  Poplar doesn't take stain very well but it does take paint great.  We used Rustoleum's 2x coverage spray paint for 4 of the squares.  I love, love, love this paint.  I've used it on wood, metal, and plastic in the past and have had great results.  The other two squares, we coated with polyurethane to keep the wood grain.
2. Prepare the design
1. We pulled our designs off the internet and I sized them appropriately in Paint.net to be 5.5 x 5.5.  Keep it simple.  Save the complex string art for later.
2. Otherwise, feel free to draw your own design.  Again, keep it simple.
   
3. Nail
1. You can tape the paper to the wood but once a couple nails are in place, it's not going anywhere.
2. Carefully, hammer the nails into the board.  They don't actually need to go very deep to be solidly in place...maybe 3/8 - 1/2" deep. 
   
3. Just follow your drawing and be patient.
4. I'm right handed and find it easier to move from left to right as add the nails.  It just allows me better vision to finesse nails into tight spaces.
5. Carefully remove the paper.
4. String!
1. Pick a nail and tie on the string.  I good square knot is fine.  Just get it tight without pulling too much on the nail.  Trim off the excess string.  You don't need to trim it too close as you can tuck the leftover into the other string to hide it.  If it's too close, it could pull itself through the knot.
2. If you're the cautionary type like me, a tiny drop of super glue on the knot might help you to sleep better.
3. There are at least two ways to string art.
1. The first is a lot like a Paint by Number.  You're really filling in the space with as much string as you can.  This is the simplest and what all the kids did with their art.  The Batman and Green Lantern symbols both included oval outlines and involved a little more looping: Nail one then around nail 2, back to nail one to make a loop.  Then on to nail 3 and back to nail 2 to make a second loop. etc.  Essentially, a back stitch around nails.
2. The second is more...um...mathematical.  You're using the string to approximate curves as well as fill in space.  This is how we filled in the rings on the Captain America Shield.

The kids and grownups had a lot of fun with this.  And now they have something pretty awesome for their bookshelves.

I'm your Huckleberry. Make the Scene #1. Monster Panoramic Coloring Page

We’re taking crayons to the big screen. Not one. Not two. But six pages of old west adventure. That’s 3 pages of background and 3 pages of color and cut accessories. I’m super excited about this. You’ve got the sheriff, the shifty villain (in black for my version), Doc Holliday, a Gila monster (say it. It’s fun), dynamite, and a triceratops. Because, well...why not? And you get to make the scene. Finding just the right place for that puffed up cat is one of the highlights.

Making this was a blast. Coloring it was a ton of fun for me too. I really intended to only color part of it so I could get everything listed online as fast as possible. But once I colored, cut a few things out, and started moving them around the background, I really had to do the rest. I opted for mixed media...crayons for the background and colored pencils for the accessories


Here are just a few of the things I learned:

• Whether I’m working on one sheet or three sheets of paper, the hardest part is figuring out what has to be left out. I halfway cheated that process here by passing that decision on to the one actually doing the coloring. 
• The Graffis kids, even the four-year-old, have loved this thing. And we’ve used a fair amount of printer paper. They’ve also super-modified by taping the background to the wall and then a couple of the figures to Popsicle sticks to make a pretty amazing puppet show.
• My 42 year old fingers just can’t cut with scissors the way they used to. Really, the kids plowed through cutting everything out but my hands were aching way too soon. 

Available for digital download from the Graffis Designs Etsy Shop.

Mid-Century Inspired Mini Plant Stands

A while back, my family came into the possession of several wooden salad bowls.  While very pretty, the bowls weren't something we were likely to use in actual eating.  I liked their shape and their size was perfect to make a table top planter...especially with some kind of mid-century inspired plant stands.

These were constructed with poplar and well sealed.  The cacti are planted in a separate bowl inside the wooden one.  I'd like to find something that fits a little better inside the wooden bowl but I have yet.

BTW: at the time this photo was taken, the prickly pear cactus had spent probably a month in the bowl and was doing really, really well.  I'm still surprised.  It's fun to see new, spiky little "paws" sprouting.

Jonah Coloring Page

Ok...I didn't include the great fish in the image. But it does include those few minutes just before the fish makes its appearance. Here, Jonah, having fled from God and His calling, is tossed overboard to calm the seas and save the lives of the sailor aboard the ship. The main goal of the drawing was to capture the how horrible the storm likely was. Well, capture it and make a cool coloring page.

David vs. Goliath Coloring Page

A couple years ago, I made each our kids a coloring book as a Christmas stocking stuffer.  The book included a random assortment of line drawings that ranged from a VW Baja Bug to Plastic-Man in steam shovel disguise.  The kids loved them.
This project is an extension of that.  Originally, I thought I'd make this a more traditional painting in keeping with some of the other things I've done recently.  Then I thought it would lend itself pretty well to a coloring page.  I also found it a little difficult to find other, not-too-cartoony coloring pages of David and Goliath.

I won't claim this is entirely historically accurate but I read the Biblical account several times (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+17) as well as a couple historical explorations into the event and tried to stay as accurate as possible (Goliath's armor, Goliath's armor bearer, the valley, etc).

The page is now available on Etsy as an immediate download.