Wild Things for the Waiting Room

My month of August has been busy building, painting, creating and decorating for my husband's new job.

They updated an older clinic and I volunteered to do the decor.

I'm starting with my absolute favorite project from anything I've made for his office,

the painting for the kid's corner in the waiting room.

I had to design all the kid things in a small area, so the painting actually turns a corner.

I've been planning this painting for years, but thought it would be fun to 

display it where lots of people could enjoy it rather than just hanging in our toy room or something.

I will say if my husband ever switches jobs, I am taking it with me, however.

Even when I envisioned it on one flat wall, I had planned it to be a triptych painting in three panels. 

Below in an Ikea spice rack holds the original Maurice Sendack 

children's book to read.

So how I made it:

The painting is on 1/4" thick red oak sheeting. 

 I bought it at Home Depot in a 4'x5' sheet for $35.00. 

 I cut my painting 3.75' x 5' wide.  The rest of the sheet went to other projects.

I wanted the trees to be the actual wood, which is why I chose to paint it on the wood sheeting, 

so I cut out tree shapes from contact paper 

(the kind you line your silverware drawers with) and stuck them on the wood.

I used craft acrylic paint and dobbed on the background, 

then peeled off the tree stickers revealing the red oak trunks.

Using the book as a reference, I sketched on the characters.  

My son wanted the little goat wild thing rather than the beak bird, 

so one wild things is different from the scene in the story.

 My son helped paint the grass at the bottom.

I tried my best to mute the colors by adding gray to most of them to attempt to duplicate the faded wash look of the book, 

which used watercolors.  

I went through more than 5 thin Sharpie permanent markers to shade all the details.

I chose to only detail the wild things.  

The trunks are just raw wood, and the leaves and plants were just paint.

I thought the detailing only being on the characters helped them pop off the painting better.

(Moishe is my favorite) 

Once the painting was finished I added a clear coat of satin Mod Podge to protect it.
I considered polyurethane, but it seems to yellow too much and I didn't want to risk it.

I was a little nervous to take my paiting and hack it on my table saw into the three pieces, but I went slow and it left clean edges.

I also rounded the corners with a coping saw to help give the three panels a unified dimension.

 Because these are only 1/4" thick, I obviously couldn't drill hardware in the back.

I also wanted them to stand from the wall, so I ended up using magnets to float mount them.

My mom had given me super strong magnets that hold 10 pounds.

(they are serious magnets, two got close enough to join, pinching my finger between them...they can be dangerous)

So I used epoxy to glue the magnets on the back of the paintings (top and bottom in center)

For the other magnet half to attach to the wall, I took a scrap of of 1x3 and drilled a hole with a spade drill bit and glued the magnet in the scrap.

At the office I screwed the scrap to the wall and the painting just sticks right on. 

I am a big fan of this book!

Max the Wolf costume

Moishe backpack

More office projects to come!