Can you believe this started out as a small trash can?
After seeing Sharon’s video at Where The Gnomes Live, I just had to stop the project I was working on and make one for myself. She was also the inspiration for my tree house and I love making trees like this.
I began with the small trash can on my worktable. I used aluminum foil wadded up that reached from the bottom to above the top of the trash can. When I had completed that, I covered the foil with masking tape.
The eyes were the hardest thing to do. I was not able to get them even and they make him look like an old Chinese man. lol! The nose is also foil covered with tape. Thankfully, when making a tree, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Next, I covered him with paper towels and glue. Sharon dips her paper towel in glue before she puts it on, but I can’t stand the glue on my hands. I use a paintbrush to put glue liberally on the area I want to cover then I put a generous amount on top. The eyes and lips were made from aluminum foil. The eyebrows and mustache are just paper towels saturated in glue and twisted. I used a twisted paper towel to form the end of his nose. I put fans on him to help him dry. It took two days for the mustache to dry.
The next step was painting. I used a black wash, paint mixed with water, for the first coat. Then I painted brown lightly over that. I was not intending to do pupils yet, but the paint got on there when doing the lids. I left the mustache because I wanted it to be lighter than the rest.
The next coat was a dark granite gray. It still seemed dark to me and I began to regret the black coat.
Next was pewter gray then a light gray. It still was not looking the way I wanted. I was still regretting using the black base coat. I continued with the light gray, putting spots of it on different places since my trees outside had that pattern. That did not look right at all, so I went over everything with the light gray again. That helped some but still didn’t quite look right. I painted the mustache and eyebrows heavily with the light gray.
Finally, I decided to add some more brown. My plan was to just keep adding colors until I liked it. The brown really made a difference! I was finally happy with the way it looked. After adding brown for his eyes, I considered it finished.
Until I realized that I had not added pupils and forgot to put some brown on his chin. Now it was complete!
I thought about adding mushrooms, but am afraid it would take up too much room on my worktable and get in the way.
I know I will be making more things into trees because it is so much fun and it doesn’t matter that I am not good at painting.