I made a very special present for my best friend, for an anniversary. Since he is from Serbia, I chose to base my design
on the Serbian flag, which features a coat of arms on a background of
red, blue and white stripes. I used a box that he actually gave me
for my birthday that had chocolates in it. It's a white box with a red
stripe around the side, so the colors are already perfect.
In the first picture, you can see that I have already drawn the coat of arms
from the flag, and I am in the process of coloring it--the red and blue
parts are done, but it still needs the yellow parts. Also in the
picture, you can see some red and blue papers, and I am going to use
these to make the stripes.
In this photo, you can see that I have taken the red paper and blue paper that I said I was
going to use to make the stripes of the Serbian flag on the box. I marked the lid of the box into three equal parts, and then used the decoupage
technique, in which I painted a clear liquid glue / lacquer over the
paper to adhere it to the box and also to coat it with a clear, shiny
finish.
But I didn't want to just make plain stripes. Using paint samples, I
selected red colors that were similar to the red that I wanted but
slightly different shades. I cut them up with scissors into small pieces
of varying shapes, and then I used more glue to stick them down and
coat them. As you can see in this picture, the red stripe is complete.
It looks like a mosaic, but just using paper and glue instead of using
tiles and grout.
For the white stripe, I knew white paper wouldn't be enough of a
contrast with a white background, so to make it more of a nod to actual
mosaic work, I painted the stripe a light grey color that looks a bit
like grout, and then I did the pieces in white. There are slight
variations in the tones of white, as well. I wanted the colors to vary a
little to make it more like the random broken tiles used in mosaic, but
not TOO much, because I also wanted to preserve the integrity of the
flag's colors and design.
I really enjoyed working on this, and especially using the "paper
mosaic" technique, which I thought up several years ago when I received
several books of paint samples and was thinking about how to use them. I
only just this past year got around to doing it!
After I finished the stripes, I went back to the crest and crown that I
had drawn and colored in, and I carefully cut them out and placed them
on top of the stripes, situated just like it is on the flag of Serbia.
It created a nice three-dimensional effect, with the base color on the
surface of the box, and then the paper "tiles" on top of that, and the
crest on top of that. I glued the crest and crown in place and sprayed
everything with a coating of clear gloss protector. The box had become surprisingly heavier with all those layers, even though they were just paper!
I think the finished
product turned out really well, and when I gave it to my friend, he
loved it! He just couldn't stop looking at it the whole time, and he
showed it to his friends and family, and they like it, too. As a gift,
it was very successful, and as an art project, it was wonderfully fun to
do and came out as I'd hoped. It was my first time trying this
technique, and I'm looking forward to doing more work in this way.
Images are my own photos of my original work. Click to enlarge!
