LOS CANNABIS

This is a tray I made for a friend.  I wanted to do something elegant and kitschy all at the same time.  Sort of a bourgeois antique mixed with Mexico souvenir.  Mission accomplished methinks.  I implemented my wood burning tool that had gone previously unused.  I thought it would be a nice compliment to the subject matter.  The process in pictures and text as follows.

Step 1.

Find an image to rip off.













Step  2.
Photocopy and trace elements I want to keep.  I did a lot of research on what the plants looked like in various stages as well as different strains.  I tried to mimic the layout as closely as possible to make it not look out of place.  Also I thought some boobs were more than necessary.














Step 3.
With the drawing finished I had to transfer it to the tray.  I photocopied it backwards, placed it on the tray, rubbed acetone on the back side and worked in small areas with a burnisher to basically rub the toner off the paper and onto the wood.

Step 4.
This is the fun part finally.  I got out a scrap piece of wood to practice using the different tips on and then just jumped right in.  I did all the line work first. 

Step 5.
Then onto the shading, much more tricky.  I think if the quality of the wood were better it would have been more smooth and less finicky, but it turned out alright regardless.













Step 6.
I took a while deciding on what colors to use.  I used purple for the blossoms and mixed this color to my liking.  Much to my surprise when I later decided to cover the walls of the tray in paper I found I had mixed the exact same color as the paper I had.  Fate!

Step 7.
After covering the walls with some fancy purple paper I designed the outer walls of the tray.  These designs were not copied from anything and aside from the little smoking lady are entirely original.













Step 8.
Burned, painted, papered and varnished.  The finished product in all its glory.  I'm pretty proud of it and am excited about my new skill in pyrography.