Wooden (Pirate) Ship

This post could also be titled "The one in which I build a ship..."

A pirate ship to be exact.  Oh how I love this little creation.  It is my entry for the Novel Art event held at the Ligonier Valley Library.  It is a wonderful fundraiser that asks the community - young, old, crafty, artsy,  - to make a piece of art from a book.  Last year, I made a castle (see a few posts down) and this year, I wanted it to be sort of a companion piece to the castle.  And fairy tale castles, seemed more appealing to girls, so I thought a few swarthy pirates were in order for the boys in the audience.  So I started, of course, with making the pirates.  That part was easy.  Peg legs, hooks, bandannas, goatees and long hair pulled back into a pony tail - so so so much fun to make.  For some reason, I have always wanted to try making a mermaid.  So I did that too!  And a treasure chest.  Then I moved on to the ship.  I had NO idea how to do it.  I didn't want to get too fussy with the structure and if you really look at a good pirate ship.  It's fussy.  There are all kinds of sails and cannons and details that I knew I could get lost in but I did have a deadline for crying out loud so I just went simple.  The ship itself is just card stock with cardboard supports and I literally built it from the bottom up.  I drew the base out of cardboard and measured how long the sides needed to be and how tall I felt like they should be and I drew the shape of the sides based on these measurements.

Then the fun part...The "boards" are just lots of watercolored book pages cut into strips and decoupaged onto the sides and the flooring of the ship.  Between all the layers of paper, adhesive and cardboard - it's a sturdy vessel!  And of course there had to be sails!!!  SO much fun.  So much fun that the evening of the day that I turned it in to the library, I actually uttered the words "I miss my ship."  That is how much fun this was to make. 

The other photos included in my show and tell this post is - it's spring!  Thank you thank you thank Mother Nature!  It's beautiful.  And someone has REALLY been enjoying the nicer weather.  Here is my doxie Bean taking a little rest after a long walk.