I definitely eluded to this in my last post...
...another one of these Picasso projects may be in the near future!
So, you had to see this coming!
Like I mentioned, I still have a lot of little scraps from trimming the Easter Egg and the Easter Bunny I just finished. There's only one more piece of Easter/Spring imagery that I can think of...
A big flower!
Let's get started!
I started with a design on backer board. I sketched a petal out of a piece of posterboard and made 5 identical petals centered around a fixed point. The flower isn't "symmetrical" by any means. But, I do want this to look rustic. Also, I can smooth it out if needed with my belt sander at the end (like I did with the egg!).
Next was just trying to fit the irregular little pieces of scrap wood onto the backer board
Like a puzzle!
Believe me, the backer board is under there!
So, I used only pieces that I had left in my scrap bucket. Some were strips left over from the Easter Bunny project. The rest were trimmings from the Easter egg project and little pieces from some quilt squares.
I did not cut any of these pieces when fitting them!
..........................
Sorry, I felt the need to clarify that. This took a long time to switch out pieces, and fit them all together without "cheating" and cutting pieces to make them fit. Like a crazy puzzle with pieces that don't fit together perfectly and with a lot of character.
But, I did it!
Next part is adhering the wood pieces to the backer board...
I went with wood glue and pressure clamps for this. Every piece that was placed was given a very generous amount of wood glue. As you can see, I needed A LOT of help keeping this thing together while drying, so I used clamps on basically every piece of wood that was near or on the edges of the backer board.
Some pieces were just hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Not much surface area at all to adhere to! Still, I hoped for the best, and just used generous amounts of wood glue, clamping the pieces tight as I went!
I let the wood glue dry for 24 hours before removing the clamps...
I did a quick test to make sure the pieces all adhered and are on there good and tight. Like I mentioned before, I don't want any pieces coming off during trimming!
To the scroll saw!
Phew, that was tough!
The different densities of wood made this a stubborn piece to cut!
Also, you may notice I had some casualties during cutting! Some pieces came off because of the vibration of the scroll saw and the limited surface area adherence to the backer board...
So, I went ahead and trimmed those pieces that fell off to fit in their designated spots before sticking them back on with wood glue and clamping them overnight!
The clamps came off the next day. There were still some rough edges that needed smoothing out, so I used a combination of my palm sander and my belt sander to round everything out...
And that's it! I left some imperfections and jagged edges to keep that rustic look...
In this angle, you can really see the different thicknesses and dimension of the piece.
All different types of wood were used on this one, and it definitely shows!
Now, all the small reclaimed wood shavings and trimmings are put to good use! Sure, there's a couple trimmings left over, but they'll be a good start to a new wave of scraps for the future. It'll be a while before I can do another one of these Picasso, patchwork projects...
I'll be looking forward to it!
-Kevin
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