The second birdhouse was for RJ's mom. She is a huge fan of the Gators, so there was no doubt that I would do a wood-burning project with this theme in mind.
The house I found was a much easier shape than the lighthouse, or so I thought. This one cylindrical, with no sides or edges. I thought this would make it easier but it presented it own challenges. I had imagined drawing a large alligator around the roof of the house, with its tail curling around the point.
The house I found was a much easier shape than the lighthouse, or so I thought. This one cylindrical, with no sides or edges. I thought this would make it easier but it presented it own challenges. I had imagined drawing a large alligator around the roof of the house, with its tail curling around the point.
But without edges or sides, I needed to adjust the angle I was drawing in so that I wouldn't stretch the illustration out of proportion. From most angles you couldn't tell. But as I turned the house to continue drawing, what should have stayed as a top down perspective suddenly became elongated.
You can tell the difference where the right legs of the alligators, in fact, the whole right side of the alligator, is a bit fatter and squat than the left side (since I drew it from left to right). The right side is also kicked out to the side a lot more, whereas it would have been pointing forward more like the original side was.
Since I had already used waterbirds on the light house, I didn't want to add anything similar to this house, so I picked different leaves all together. With the bumpy, cobbled texture of the alligator skin, I thought big leaves with simple designs would be best. But I still wanted them interesting looking and to somewhat look like they belonged together. So I added shaded lines to the leaves that would echo the lines of the spiky palm leaves.
Similar to the the blue fade on the light house bird house that simulated a watery background, I decided to give this one a swampy, mottled, yellow-green wash of color. The idea came from my many trips to the zoo where we watched the alligators come up from under ponds covered with bright green algae. It gave the whole house a good contrast and made the burned images stand out more.
Finally, to finish the whole thing off, I painted some of the edges with a solid dark green color. Just so there wouldn't be any unfinished edges sitting next to each other where bare wood could be seen. Because I still wanted it to be clear that it was a birdhouse and didn't want the entrance and post to get lost in the design.
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