Look What I Did for the Holidays!

Holiday decorations strung over the street in downtown Wausau

Over the Christmas season I actually took almost two weeks off work.  I know now you are scratching your head and wondering why I didn't post on my blog with all that spare time.  I found an alarming amount of other projects to immerse myself in instead, including a sudden urge to make new yard art for Christmas.  Here's a picture of the yard art I made with Wayne's help about 8 years ago.

Spongebob and Patrick have real hats stapled on..and were full of spider webs!

Well, the Bikini Bottom gang are getting a little worn from the weather, and while re-drawing their outlines and adding a coat of polyurethane extended their life another few years I decided the time had come to make them some new friends.

So here's how I do it:  I browse online for coloring book pages that fit the theme/characters I am looking for.  I divide the picture into a grid and then transfer the grid onto 3/4 inch MDF plywood.  I just do some approximate math and as in the picture above divide the sheet of wood into 8 squares and do the same with the image.  Then I only have to tackle a small portion  of the drawing at a time, just like in those old mystery grid art puzzles I used to do when I was a kid!  Some of the pictures I printed out were not winter themed, for instance I added a scarf and pants to Schroeder after I traced him out and with Peppermint Patty I changed the balloon she was holding to a candy cane and added mittens and a scarf but kept her signature sandals!

Wayne joins the artistic process

I got the MDF plywood tip from this link, my Spongebob crew were made out of regular plywood and what a difference the MDF makes.  It is a much smoother working surface and I expect the paint job will hold up more years.  If you look closely at the cutout of Linus below you will see the pencil marks from the grid, as well as the pencil marks where I made my inital drawing.  The final drawing in ink doesn't always match up as the image takes shape I have to make adjustments for it to look right.  I could never do it completely freehand though, the grid makes it all possible!  After making the final image in permanent marker Wayne cuts it out with a saw, and we erase the pencil marks as best we can with one of those big pink erasers.

As you can see, there is a method to my madness by using the permanent marker.  After Wayne puts a coat of primer on Lucy she would be a big blob and I'd have to figure out all over again how to fill her details in.  It's okay that the lines show through, I go over everything with black outline again after it is painted anyway to give it that cartoon drawing look.  I love that we do this as a team as we each get breaks from the task while someone else does the following step.  I draw, Wayne cuts and primes.  I paint the details, Wayne paints the sides and back.  I figure out how to arrange them on the lawn, Wayne attaches the stakes and pounds them in!

Jewel thought this was the best thing ever.  We were in the garage two days making all of the figures and painting them and she was there every step of the way.  She even climbed up the wall from the tool bench and jumped into the kayak hanging from the ceiling so she wouldn't miss any of the action!!

Bird's eye view of the creative process

For the color part of the process I used acrylic craft paint from Michael's, those small bottles of paint cover a surprising amount of surface.  I think I used 2 of the small bottles for the flesh tone, and for the red I had bought the large bottle and did not run out even though I used a lot of red.  I also did a little bit of mixing instead of buying multiple shades of blue for Linus' blanket and Schroeder's pants, and added a little yellow to the red along with a dash of brown for Peppermint Patty's hair.  Lucy's purple dress was custom mixed from the red and blue I had on hand as well.

Notice our camper lurking on the side of the house, just waiting for spring to come out and play

I started outlining with the black paint and it was taking so long that I switched to a King Sized Sharpie permanent marker.  Much easier to get the fine details, especially on Snoopy and Woodstock and it went so much quicker.  A quick coat of polyurethane was applied as dark started to fall, I'll add another coat when the weather warms back up.  We also paint the exposed edges and the back of the figures black.  Wayne made a wooden cross support of scrap wood for Charlie Brown's "tree" and we just took a branch and used wood glue to insert it into a drilled hole and hung an ornament on it.  My only complaint is somehow I made Pepperminta Patty too "short" and I plan to go back and fix that before next winter, otherwise I love how she turned out including her Packer colors with the yellow scarf and mittens against her green sweater!

I love these guys!! And my helper who you can see in the kitchen window!

We used screw in clips to hang the lights on the doghouse and Snoopy is actually a separate piece and is attached on the back with a screwed on brace.  Wayne used long wooden stakes screwed onto the boards to hold them in the ground.  We actually had to go back a few days later and unscrew them and pound them deeper into the ground and re-attach them after some heavy wind.  The link I provided above used a different method, choose whichever sounds better to you.  If you look closely at the bottom of the doghouse right under the blue bulb you can see one of the screws, I'm not a fan of this method but it is what Wayne chose so I had to go along with what he was willing to do and it obviously cannot be seen from a distance.  How can I complain with all the technical assistance he provided?  So modest too, every time a neighbor came over to compliment us as we were putting them up he passed all the glory to me.  Online these kind of figures run $90 each, we paid $75 for 3 sheets of 3/4 inch MDF plywood and had Home Depot rip them in half which gave us 6 sheets to work with that were 4x4.  I think I spent less than $20 on paint and other supplies.  Of course we put about 10 hours of labor into them at least, so maybe not a business you want to get into to make money but doing it yourself sure saves a lot of cash!

Next on my yard art to-do list...Halloween!  We'll see how many years it takes me to get around to that...