I made this between projects, when I had just finished with a large one (I think it was the owl) and wasn’t yet ready to start something big. I bought this wooden box at Michael’s. They’re not too expensive, and this one came inside a larger box. Of course, as soon as I started to woodburn on it, my daughter decided that was the very thing she wanted to do, so I gave her the larger box and had to share the woodburner.
I’ve been using Zentangles as inspiration for a lot of my patterns. You can see the pattern on the front by the lock is one of them, as is the one on the side. I made inset panels and drew the poppies in there and a hatched background. That wasn’t interesting enough, so I decided to add the watercolor wash for color.
My original intent had been to put resin on the top for a lacquered enameled look, but once I’d burned and painted it, lacquer or resin felt like overkill. I think if i were to do this again, I might consider using acrylic rather than watercolor. Watercolors are easier to mix, and my watercolor paints are higher quality than most of my acrylic paints, but with less pigment and the wood inconsistenly porous, it gave it a washed-out appearance.
