Before the whole thing comes together right at the end, there are many individual steps in the standoff process…
It’s an admittedly annoying step but since paper reacts to its environment, in order to ensure that it doesn’t bend or curl, I need to varnish the backside to completely seal it up.
Each tile is hand-painted and hand-torn to create a deckled edge. Anytime I have leftover paint from a project, I try to create more tiles with it. Waste not, want not! This also gives me great variety in my tiles.
I usually know exactly what the design will look like but sometimes, as in the case of these rings, I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to lay them out. It’s fun to just play around a bit!
I love this step! It’s gratifying how quickly you see it start coming together. The wood panels usually require 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint, and 2 (maybe 3) coats of varnish.
Each individual wooden standoff is hand-painted two times until it is completely covered. They need to perfectly match the background color of the wooden panel. It’s “busy work” to be sure and requires a good audio book or some sing along music!!
This is how all the standoffs start. A piece of paper and a good set of grid lines. Depending on the design, I will either cut them for precise clean edges or will score and tear them to create a deckled edge.
In terms of my standoffs, I can buy wooden cubes in standard sizes. However, if the design calls for standoffs of varying height or angles, out comes the compound mitre saw! It takes some trial and error to get the angle just so but it’s fun work that gets me outside for a change of scenery.
When you consider the following design variables…shape, multi-color, solid color, resin, no resin, clean edge, deckle-edge, constant standoff height, varied standoff height, etc…. Well those alone allow for like 362K variations! The options are endless!
I love to create these because they are modern, playful, enticing and no two are ever the same.
But even more so, I love that my standoffs elicit the “Oh, this is even better in person!!” sort of reaction from people. There is a level of sophistication to these pieces that routinely surprises people and I love that!
My first attempt at combining both standoffs AND resin. Let’s just say that there were lessons learned for round two. What’s more concerning is that I continue to test out new ideas with final products!? I should have used a plain wooden disc, no glitter. When will I learn?
The process of creating standoffs feels disjointed. 90% of the time I’m working on a single part of the overall design. When I finish that part, I move on to the next. None of the individual parts “look” like the end product yet. And then finally all of the pieces are ready to be assembled and placed on the wooden panel. That is a great day!
The last 10% of my time takes all the bits and pieces and transforms them quite suddenly into the finished product. This is maybe the best example of delayed gratification ever!
