A Story in the Round: "While We Are Sleeping"

This fall my husband placed his game cameras to photograph any animals that might be coming in for apple snacks. It turned out to be an amazing collection of animals came in the night. When he turned it into a video, it became almost a dance of comings and goings. Of course there was our horse, Lil Bit, but right along with her were deer, bears, raccoons, foxes and skunks. It was pretty fun to see who was out there night after night. We discovered that not only bears, but also foxes climb trees.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOjS2Ebwr10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAVIyqHp1Ak

Being an artist, I started thinking about making this into a story of sorts. I knew our grandchildren would love seeing it someway other than on the computer screen. I had seen the beautiful lazy susans made by a company in the mid-west and thought that I might be able to do something similar, but telling our story, "While We Are Sleeping."

First I needed a 29-inch wood tray. Looking on the internet I found a nice looking birch plywood tray with a laminated edge, covering the plywood edge. Naturally the maker of the tray lived across the country, so I had to place an order and wait for it to arrive.

With Christmas just around the corner, I had to make good use of my time, so I started practicing with my wood burning tool to see how I might put it to use in this project. (I'd never used one before!)

I made 29-inch circles out of brown craft paper, and started to plan out the story. It's harder than you might think to put an idea out on a round surface. I asked Mike to produce some single images from his videos. (The ones you see from the photos above.)  I then made drawings from those and made cut-outs of the animals to move around my round shape.

Finally the tray arrived and I started my wood burning with great trepidation. I am no expert, but I managed to outline my images, write my carefully chosen words, and make animal foot prints around the tray.

I had never used my acrylic paints to stain wood before, but I watered them down, and away I went.

Like a gift should be, this became a labor of love. I was pretty tickled with myself as this gift turned out to be truly one of a kind and personal.

And here it is in use in Arizona! Merry Christmas Carters!