My Recent Art Project

I'll just preface this with a disclaimer:  My first time working with a dremel. This piece is far from perfect and my design instructors would cringe. I couldn't figure out how to get the polycrylic to NOT goop up in the knotwork, so... I kind of want to just hide this in the closet and chalk it up to practice. So maybe it's a good thing he wouldn't come get it today.

Laying down the gridwork and learning how to do celtic knots. My very first time doing celtic knots.
I looked at a lot of tutorials. Threw in some steampunk gears for fun.

Finalized the knotwork, added the raven, and decided on a lunar theme for the top

Starting to dremel. This took hours. and hours. and hours. A - because I was learning to dremel as I went, B - because I was trying to figure out which bit worked best, and C - Because there's a lot of work to do.

At this point, I took it down to my father-in-law's house and we routed the edges. It was also at this point that I decided it was in the best interest of my elbow, thumb and forefinger to only dremel the knotwork.

Onward to the next stage:

Sanded, stained, and raven outlines inked in. The raven looked like a chicken at first, and I was mortified. 

Inked in gears and added the lunar phases

Finished. Knotwork painted so it stands out, gears highlighted, raven done. The zeppelin specs were not part of the original idea, but the feather pen I painted on looked terrible. I probably should have darkened the ink on the specs and weathered the edges to make it fit in better.  The raven was done with Acrylics over the ink.

I hope you can pardon the poor photographs, but I committed art!  Poorly, but it got me through yesterday, so that counts to me for something pretty big.


-- Do you know how many layers of yellow India ink it takes to actually make something look yellow instead of the color of whatever was under it? At least six. I kept inking and inking and inking until it looked yellow instead of brownish green. Note to self: In the future put a white background under anything I want to ink yellow.