A large watercolor paper cutout that I started in September last year.  It was meant to be my winter project, and I finished it the week before my work season started again.

I originally drew the whole thing out on paper and colored it digitally to get an idea of the dimensions and color scheme (at this point I also removed a couple of elements that I didn’t like).

After deciding on a color scheme I started painting the blocks of color to cut out.  I tried to use a variety of different colors and textures, trying my hand at using sponges, rubbing alcohol, and salt with the paints.

After painting the blocks of the next step is cutting out and pasting together the different shapes of paper.  I kept track of all the colors by labeling a printout of the drawing.

Jump ahead in time, 5 months into the future, and I finally finished cutting out and pasting together the figure and the inside background.  Now it’s time to build the box.

The dimensions of the shadowbox are 22 inches tall, 15 inches wide, and 8 inches deep.

Then it was just an issue of putting the whole thing together.  I started by putting a sheet of plexiglass in the front so I wouldn’t have to worry about dust in the future (after shattering the original piece of glass that I had purchased), so the whole thing had to be installed from the back.  I had to run a heavy wire up the back of the Treebeard figure to make sure that he stood in place (a problem I didn’t foresee in the sketching phase).  I panicked a bit when I realized that the figure was way too wobbly to stand on his own.  On the back of the frame I stretched a piece of painted freezer paper to allow the light through, and mounted a fluorescent bulb behind it as a light source.

After finishing the inside of the box I cut out the decorations for the frame and had them laminated at a local copy shop.  Once again I did this so that I wouldn’t have to worry about dust, or about getting the thing wet (which would be catastrophic).

Time frame to completion:  Original sketch started on September 9th, 2009- Completed on May 6th, 2010.  That’s just shy of 8 months.