A True Monsterpiece

Last week I had the chance to decorate a couple of cajóns for the current exhibition at Walford Mill Crafts. I was allowed to do anything I wanted, but I only had a week or so to come up with ideas and finish them off, so big projects were out and considering this I came up with a theme using what I now consider my 'signature colour pallet' and some materials that I already had available.
This was the cojons to start with:

Pretty darn boring. I gave them a sand with sandpaper to tidy them up a bit and then painted them with a bit of leftover paint... and I had a little helper too!

Despite this futile attempt to sabotage me I finished the painting:

They only had to be painted on three sides as the other two sides are for banging and making noise. I seem to have forgotten to take any more 'in progress' photos and skipped straight to the finished drums so here we are:

I used some leftover fabrics with different textures and patterns to create a 'scaly' sort of look on the green one, and some laser cut mirrored acrylic with paper scales for the other one. The mirrored acrylic was a sample from my second year of uni that didn't quite do what it was supposed to do but I held onto it anyway with the intention of using it for a future project; this seemed like the perfect time! I sort of wanted the cajóns to look reminiscent of sea creatures or monsters, or perhaps like they had wings and I really like how they turned out; colourful and fun and happy! I finished them with some glitter tape and they were ready to be put into the kid's corner of the exhibition:

Our sensory activity corner aims to teach children about some of the senses: touch, sight, smell and sound and I think my cajóns fit in well with their differing textures and playability!

That's it for now, but some exciting news will be coming soon!