A Painted Sled for Christmas With Chickadees and Nuthatch
2 Materials
$15
5 Hours
Medium
This hand-painted sled features a couple chickadees and a Nuthatch in the winter woods. I picked up or acquired this sled last year sometime with the thought of painting a scene that featured some beautiful in winter. It was time to get it done. And this one in addition to being ready for the Holiday can be enjoyed for the entire winter season and longer.
This is the sled prior to it being sanded. I took the sled down to one of the garages that had a vice and power grinder to speed up the sanding process. The boards were sanded by hand. And the finishing nails that someone used in making the sled were ground down level to the wood.
The next step was to apply a primer coat and for this, I used Zinsser primer on the wood and the metal ( except for the runners).
The steering arm will be painted a few times before I finally got it to something that went well with the scene. This was my own fault because I was putting the composition together as I progressed. The green on the top certainly didn't go well.
Sorry for the backdrop there is garden stuff and art and craft items along with hydroponic and aquaponic garden items all over. You can see here one of the changes to the steering bar already. For the main area, I chose to blend greens and yellow and blue to make a wintery type background without a lot of detail needed.
I decided too to paint the side pieces as though they were paper birch branches. After adding some detail to them they really went well with the main part.
A few light branches were added along with highlighting the darker green area. It is these little things that help make a composition stand out and give depth to the scene.
My initial thought was to put a bird in each of the four corners (of an oval sled
) and to paint a male and female cardinal on the center board. Working in the Chickadees first I decided not to use Cardinals and just add the Nuthatch.
) and to paint a male and female cardinal on the center board. Working in the Chickadees first I decided not to use Cardinals and just add the Nuthatch.
I decided to go with the birch branch look for the steering bar as well. I did not like how the first painting of the bar looked, it was too overdone, so I washed the paint off and started over.
The metal and underside of the wood was spraypainted using Rustoleum. The rest of the painting was done using Acrylic paints.
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2 comments
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Spectacular! What a special and unique idea for a gift!
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Thank you.
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