Doodling....

I bought this plywood box 'J' from Hobbycraft with an idea to fill it with a layer of buttons (using up some my stash of buttons) but wasn't happy with it.
I had a lightbulb moment while making my JoFY Bingo Week15 project (HERE)... I could stamp and doodle inside the 'J' !!!  Stamp my doodle images to doodle around!!
Couldn't get started fast enough! lol

Here's how I did it - nice and simple!

The J is about 3cm deep (22cm tall) but I wanted the contents (buttons was the plan) to sit higher so I cut lots of bits of cardboard and arranged them in stacks inside the 'J' so the base was raised by about 2cm... (you could lay contents in the base)

Drew around the plywood shape and cut it out..

... and laid it on top of the stacks...  When happy with the height and fit I glued everything in place.. (PVA will do the job)

Next I painted it in my chosen colour - I went for dark grey (PaperArtsy Fresco Finish 'Slate') but later changed it for black gesso.  Set it aside to dry.

To create a base for the doodles and stamping:  I drew around the letter on black cardstock...

I chose to stamp with white paint ('Snowflake' Fresco Finish - brilliant opaque white!) because I knew it would match white gel pens that I was going to use for additional doodling..
I started with stars from JOFY70.. leaving a nice amount of space around them.. (for additional stamping and doodling..)... and followed with the large doodle flower from JOFY64, and flowers from JOFY54

... and here is the stamping finished...  you can just see the outline of the 'J'...

The 'J' was cut out and I doodled into all the open spaces - but not inside the outline of the doodle flower from JOFY64

Here is the finished 'J' - the top edge of the sides of the structure has also been painted white to outline the 'J'

Detail of the doodling and stamping... I really like the monochromatic colour scheme.. (it reminds me of Mexican 'day of the dead' artworks)

We went to America (ahem) number of years ago and I bought this large papermache 'J' - I 'had' to have it!  

So it came home with us, along with its matching 'M' (for Jo and Matt (my husband)) because I was going to do 'something' with them.. they've come across the Atlantic and been through two house moves -Now is the time - its now or never - I am ready to work on the big 'J'.

I can feel a bit more doodling coming on! (I'll keep you posted!)

There are lots of paper mache letters available, & you could do stamp and doodle onto all sorts of objects - inside objects (a friend recently gave me a wine box to work with - thats definitely getting a doodled interior!)... they'd make great christmas presents! (oops did I drop the 'C' word... sorry - I was hoping to get through a blog post without mentioning it again).

Thanks for stopping by