Things You can Do on the Cheap.

So, not exactly a progress-shot of a painting, but yesterday I worked on this, which aside from a couple top-layer touches, is ready for Mikey's castmates to sign and gift to the director of their run of Evil Dead the Musical, which ends this weekend.

It's made with a dollar store notebook, one wine-bottle cork, glue, an exacto knife, silicone caulking, and paint (painting size medium, and colour).

The most difficult part is carving up the cork. Cutting it in half, especially. You have to take care not to slip and cut yourself. After you cut them in half, cut them to the length you want the eyes to be, if not already that length. If you do shorten them, you can carve the extra bits into teeth, which I did here. Carve the edges as desired to whatever eye shape you want, then glue them to the book.

I used Gorilla glue. It was overkill, but I likes me some powerful glue. If you do use that sort, or another superglue, use gloves, or tweezers for the small pieces. I dabbed glue on with a toothpick. It took a couple hours to dry, but I know it'll never come off.

After your eyes, and teeth are firmly glued to the book, get your caulking gun, and spread silicone all around. The only place you really need to take care is around the eyes, and the mouth.

I recommend keeping an eye on it after you finish. I meant to squish my silicone down to the book a little bit, but I ended up waiting too long, and now the silicone is more embossed and, er, intestinal than I originally intended. No matter.

Once it's unsquishable, it's ready to colour. So now I recommend using painting size, which is a viscous white medium that dries clear, and makes paint better able to bond to most surfaces. Many caulks are designed as water barrier fail-safes, so paint beads off it instead of spreading nicely. After that dries, it's ready to paint.

My next step is to get into the little crevices I missed last night, and then to add a little bit of nail-polish to the eyes and teeth, to make them enameled. Since neither of those steps make the biggest difference in my photographic skills, for all intents and purposes, this piece is ready to rock. I wish I'd thought of it earlier. I'm going to post it as a brag on my FB on Sunday so people can see my little DIY experiments.

Got up at 5 this morning to take my little Bilbo cat in to her spay appointment. I feel so jittery. It's going to be a busy day. In an hour, I leave to help someone move a piano. Then I come back to finish prepping the pieces I'm taking to a show tonight. Then I go pick up my furbaby. Then I come back. Then I go to the show.

Tomorrow I really will paint. It'll be a recovery day. For both me AND my furbaby.

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