Butterflies & Hydrangeas Jewelry Box

I'm finding it a bit harder to blog about new artwork lately, with all the gardening I'm doing and new blooms I'm taking photos of, it seems there is always something new appearing outside these days. This is a piece I finished a couple of weeks back, my Butterflies & Hydrangeas Jewelry Box.

This box is actually heavily distressed and antiqued. I really wanted it to have a feeling of being a time worn piece.

I did the antiquing one night after all the painting was done, I was in my kitchen, it was midnight and I was working on this box over the sink. Chris was actually playing a concert so this is when I can sometimes get the most work done in the evenings, the nights that he is working.

I've been on a real butterfly kick these days so I had to add two to this box.

There always has to be a surprise when the box opens so this time, I put a full Hydrangea bloom on the inside upper corner.

Emu Egg Butterfly Jewelry Box

I really ran a muck since my last post, I finished another jewelry box. This one I will be listing in my ETSY shop.

The star of this box is a butterfly that is perched on top of some burgandy, pink and yellow flowers.

This box opens to reveal a fabric lining, just as the brides box did. Rather then a curved horizontal cut, this one has a beautifully done straight cut. I have to thank Corinne for the beauty of these cuts because if she didn't do such a wonderful job with that part of it, it wouldn't look good no matter what subject matter was painted on it. Here you can see a close up of the hinge area.

I painted the whole box light pink, green & white, then built my design from there. The funny part way, I meant to leave it like the brides box that I painted, with the bottom half of the egg left its natural color. This however is where your best planned ideas go wrong. I was a bit sloppy with applying color to the top of the box, I really ended up having quite a bit of paint on the bottom half. I thought, hey no problem, I'll just wash it off and clean the bottom half up. Well, what a surprise, water, baby wipes, alcohol not even Goo Gone (which gets everything off any surface by the way) would work on this box. Turns out the shell is that heavily textured that, once you get too much paint on it, forget it, it's not coming off. This is where you have to be flexible in art and go with the flow. So, I decided that the whole box should be painted that base color, and so it was.

I also carried the design from the top half, to below the opening of the box on the bottom half. I really feel the design flows a lot better that way rather then forcing it to stay in one area. I really struggled with this box too....who knows why but it took me forever to get drawn out just the way I wanted it to be. Once it was though, I was able to dive right in and paint. From there on in it went pretty fast.

**I've decided that around mid month, each month, I'm going to be doing an "In The Spotlight" post on my blog. Here I will be featuring an artist whose work I love and greatly admire. I've got a long list of all different kinds of artists and craftspeople I plan on asking so I hope it will be a very varied display of work. I'll be posting my first artist next week so stay tuned. I hope you will all enjoy discovering some new and beautiful art work.

Emu Egg Bride's Box

My Emu egg bride's box is now finished and ready to ship out. I'll try to take you through the process of how I decided on the box design. Kathryn and I had originally discussed doing a silhouette of a bride in a garden. When I actually received the blank egg in the mail, I thought about it for a good 24 hours, mulling over differnt approaches to the design I wanted to do.

I originally decided to go with a profile image of the bride, holding flowers in her hand. I visualized the background as you see it now, that never changed but when I went to draw on a profile view of the bride, it just didn't work. The egg is so heavily textured that it was making getting any kind of profile detail very difficult. I decided at that point to switch gears and do a view from the back, of the dress, veil and one shoulder peeking out. I also decided against the silhouette idea and gave her a nice traditional white , shimmering gown. I used many different shades of paint in the gown to give it dimension.

I painted the sky and ground on first and then when that was dry, I started to draw the bride directly onto the box. It took me a few tries to get her gown just the way I wanted it to look. I also really love the black/green , rich and textured color of the egg itself so I didn't want the whole egg to be painted. I wanted the bottom half of the egg to retain its natural color and I think in doing that, it makes the design more dramatic and shows the beauty and precision of the cut in the egg.

I decided to adorn her dress with Hydrangeas cascading down from the veil and lower section of the back of the gown. Once I decided on those flowers, I decided to put them in the foreground as well, as if she were standing amoung them, ready to walk into the scene.

Here you can see some of the detail on the gown. I also added some Swarovski crystals on the lower back of the dress, just above the Hydrangeas. I wanted it to look as if that area was gathered up and the flowers were coming down from that.

I did something similar with her veil, I added 5 crystals going around the back, then added the flowers and greenery from there.

This view shows the box sitting on its very pretty wooden stand. I also liked having the flowers cascading onto the lower part of the egg itself, rather then just keeping them to the painted area.

This is a view of the inside of the box which has been lined with fabric. Because fabric and I don't really get along, Chris created the fabric lining for me. He did a great job with it too. From this angle you can see how large the Emu egg is and how much it would hold. I've put my wedding ring inside to give you an idea of the actual size. I had so much fun painting this one that I am adding a jewelry box section to my ETSY site. I've already started painting another one, this time with a floral and butterfly theme very similar to the pendants I painted a couple of weeks ago. Hope you enjoyed learning more about the process.