Roses And Thorns...

 

Gypsy Wagon Sleeping Nook... Take Two...

Some of you, Dear Readers, might recall the Gypsy Wagons and might, with reason, wonder if they would ever get worked on again, let alone completed. And it would even be reasonable to think that they are so small... what could possibly take so long to finish them? (Yes, "them"; there are two wagons, each with a distinctive decor and history.) And both incomplete! The above picture shows the second wagon, which quickly took on some extra characteristics that made it a bit more complicated (and more interesting!) with its body mostly taken apart. You know almost nothing is glued together yet! This wagon had to have an extra window in the rear wall, and also an entire "menagerie" built onto the back wall. For the goats and chickens, of course!

And these menagerie compartments were desperately dark 

and in need of some "airier" coloring.

So I started with the primer on the interiors.

And of course, while waiting for the primer to dry,

 I decided that now might be the right time to paint 

the underside of the sleeping compartment too!

The sleeping compartment at the rear of the wagons

 is high enough to allow for another sleeping area beneath it,

 like a bunk bed, but enclosed like the upper one.

It is darker and lower, and I assume

 it would be the sleeping space for children.

You might remember the lower area of the first gypsy wagon,

 painted a long time ago (look it up in the blog list at right)

 and you might remember that the Gypsy child, Rowena,

 grew up alone with her father in that wagon.

 But when she became a young woman, 

she had to go live in her Grandmother's wagon instead.

This would now be her sleeping space,

 no longer a child, but not yet grown up.

In the above picture you can see the walls

 were painted pale green a long time ago.

It only remained to decorate them.

Of course, it begins with a soft green grass...

 

And rose bushes.... 

for the sweetness of love...

 

And a white rabbit...

(because Time is passing...)

 

Or three....

(because, Time.... you know, does not stand still)

 

And we mustn't forget the thorns!

Because Life is no longer so simple...

Or the leaves....

To hide among...

 every bunny needs a place of refuge!

 

And surely we want to see what it looks like all together... 

(I apologize for the dark shot... 

a thunderstorm had rolled in...)

Here you can see the flash turned on...

Here you see the compartment wall also in place,

 with the upper and lower spaces and their doors open.

And lest we forget, the menagerie interiors

 have also been painted inside, a lovely sky blue.

But that is not all, Dear Readers, 

you must know that I can't leave a ceiling unpainted...

So the following morning I continued the roses..

onto the underside of the upper bed compartment.

(There is also a pull-out table section, but I painted it too!)

Here the platform is removed while I painted it.

Here you can see it from below with all the walls together, 

as if you are lying under the roses...

And because I was painting things.... 

I decided to (Finally!) finish the painting

 on the walls of the upper compartment too.

What was missing, you ask?

 

Well, really just a couple of owls!

Here I have under-painted the shapes.

Here the Saw-whet Owl is done

(I know, it is a too dark shot!)

And the Common Screech Owl too.

And then I had to sprinkle a few stars across the dark night sky...

And can we see it all together....

Of course, it becomes difficult to see 

and difficult to photograph...

But it is supposed to be the night sky!

And it is getting late again...

And I have been following white rabbits, Dear Readers,

 into thorns and roses...

and listening to the owls

 begin to call in the night sky!

Gypsy Wagon Sleeping Compartments...

Of What Do You Dream....?

It was That weekend, Dear Readers, which signals the beginning of Summer in so many ways, but in my house the most noteworthy way is the removal of my Houseplants to the porch for the Summer! This frees up the space in front of the windows for the Dollshouses which have spent the Winter perched on chairs and pushed into inconvenient corners. I got the plants all moved on Saturday, and even tackled a bit of window cleaning (I can't say how long it's been since I got that chore done!) and even moved the Conservatory onto the shelves in front of the sunny window. Then I moved the Gypsy Wagon from it's hibernation spot and set it on the shelf in front of the window.... and suddenly I needed to just take care of a few of those little steps that had been floating around in my mind for a while. You might remember that I had realized that none of the Wagon's walls could be completed on the outside, or attached to the base, before the interior was completed! And it was way last Summer that I had painted the walls of the sleeping compartment of the Tinker's Wagon.... with the horses in the meadow.... but the rest of the interior remained the very dark brown color I had stained all the walls. It needed color! And certainly before I could complete the sleeping area, I needed to complete the lower area, the space under the bed nook, the space where the Gypsy children sleep when they are little. And so I took the wagon apart and added paint to those interior walls. Fiery Cinnamon orange walls for the main compartment and brilliant yellow walls for the children's sleeping nook. Don't worry, once the other furnishings are all added, the color will be quite muted and hardly visible!

And then the yellow sleeping area

 needed sky blue for the ceiling

 and misty green added for the meadow....

Of course, it was a very rainy and gloomy day on Sunday....

 it was so dark inside.... 

you could barely see inside that nook 

even with the spotlight shining in...

but it made me dream of golden meadows and blue sky above....

And with the fourth wall in place you can see nothing inside....

But I am imagining the child.... 

and when asked what she sees in her meadow...

She says "chickens"! 

And "bunnies"!

So I have hastily painted a few chickens and bunnies

 on the walls of this lower compartment...

(reasoning that if her Father is the painter

 he will not spend too much time

 painting in there lying on his belly....!)

The wall on the right has a bunny....

The back wall has a bunny and a hen....

And the wall to the left has a hen with three chicks under her wings.

And of course, the meadow is filled with poppies too...

And then, because I thought something more was needed...

I added a couple of tiny clouds and a rainbow...

Because every child should have 

rainbows to chase in their Dreams!

Then I had to prop the walls together

 to see how the compartment would look from below, 

with the ceiling in place...

Can you imagine lying in the meadow

 and looking up to the summer sky....?

And seeing a rainbow sparkling in the dew....?

And with a mattress and pillow too.....

And with the "ceiling" in place..... how dark it becomes.....

What if there is a lantern......?

Is it still too dark....?

Will the rainbow be visible at all.....?

Alas, Dear Readers, I think we all know

 that this is one of those things that

 will not be visible at all when the Wagon is done..... 

not unless you can climb into that nook and Dream....!

Meanwhile, the fourth wall, 

the one with the doors to the sleeping nook,

 is still being painted....

(forgive the blue painter's tape...)

And when the doors to the sleeping nook are open....

there will be a tantalizing glimpse of the world beyond....

Inviting you to climb in for a spell....

and perhaps get lost in your Dreams!

(still not finished painting....)

And just in case you wondered, Dear Readers, 

whether I have fallen off the Wagon

 and forgotten to make another lilac blossom.....

I completed the tenth blossom!

Here they are all together in their box!

And I even started on number eleven....

So I am still on track with making one a week!

Because even while painting Rainbows in the

 Gypsy Wagon sleeping compartment, Dear Readers,

I have been Dreaming about those Lilacs....!

Of What do you Dream?

And A Little Bit More....

How Long......

I tell Myself All the time, Dear Readers, that I will finish this Lilac Shrub project Someday.... and I will! I Promise you! But the longer I work at it the Crazier I think this Idea is! I know, creativity and insanity are sometimes not very far apart! But I tell myself that I will persevere! I will just make the next blossom and then the next and then the next..... and eventually I will have enough to decorate the shrub. And then I will worry about the Leaves.... which are needed for two of the shrubs.... when I get there! Meanwhile, I fret about all my Other Projects.... which surely need some of my attention... and certainly I could maybe devote just a little bit of time to them each week... so as to accomplish something on anything that is not just another lilac blossom..... *Sigh* ...... And then I remind myself that there are Three other shrubs also needing my attention.... and I decide to devote my Wandering attention to them for now! Above you can see that I have placed the second "branched" shrub in place beside the porch so I can test the fit of all the branches. They have very little room to fit under the eaves of the porch and really must bend just so in order to be able to fit in and out of the garden spot!

And here you can see I have begun to add the branches to the third shrub!

And just so I can keep from getting them confused

they are numbered on the under-side of each pod!

And as I progress with this third shrub, 

I have decided that I simply Must get

 all four of the shrub "skeletons" finished

 before I lose track of the steps needed to finish each one!

That means I need to finish branching and

 painting and "texturing" each shrub....!

Yes, I have a Loooong way to go!

But look....! 

This week I have managed to complete Two more lilac blossoms!

The pieces for number eight are being assembled to the right.... 

and hot on their heels are the florets

 for number nine in the box at the left...!

Here are eight completed......

And number nine too....!

And here are all nine in the box!

(Only How many more to go....?)

I will not count because

 I do not know exactly how many I will need...!

But I am making progress!

 And I have only been making them for seven weeks!

(I think I can do this!)

And because You are so good and Patient 

with this project, Dear Readers,

 I have traveled back through my archives

and found another project that you have not been shown....

and I will share it with you now even though it is not yet done....

It has to do with the Second Gypsy Wagon,

 the one that belongs to The Fortune Teller.

 

 

And I must confess, that when

 I began to build the Gypsy Wagons

 a couple of Summers ago, 

I was embarrassed to show you both wagons...

 because it seemed like it was too much.... 

but I knew there had to be two wagons

 because the Gypsies would travel in a group...

so I only showed you the first wagon....

 but for every step on that wagon

 I was doing the same with the other wagon too! 

(I know, it sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

 

 

And the only differences were in small things,

 like the style of the carved trims around the doors...

 or the color of the wagons.

But then I decided that one of the wagons

 would have an extra window in the back wall

 of the sleeping compartment... high up.....

I could just see it with a deep window sill...

 with flowering plants on the sill...

So I cut the opening for the window!

And then, many months later, 

when I was thinking about how I was going to Build this window....

 because all the kit came with was 

the lovely frames for the windows... 

(I added all the glass panes...)

It occurred to me that in order to have 

a deep window sill to hold flower pots.... 

it needed to hang off the back of the wagon....

 and if it was hanging off the back of the wagon...

 then maybe there should be a "chest" or "box" as well... 

something to store things... 

that would explain the extra depth of the window sill.

So I started to build a framework 

that would attach to the back of the wagon.... 

with shelves maybe... 

or compartments......

 Or nesting boxes for chickens!....

 for surely the Gypsy Grandmother 

would want to have her chickens!

 

And it could attach like this...

And have nesting boxes like this.....

and doors, of course......

 with lots and lots of hinges!!!

 

Because all the compartments needed

 to be able to access separately....

 one chicken at a time.... 

and the bottom area for bigger creatures...

 maybe a goat or two?

And all those doors need extra interior trim

 to cover those sharp screws......

(And I have not yet decided how they latch!)

And since we have just added a Barn

 to the back of the wagon....

 perhaps there is still room for shelves in the corners... 

to hold a plant or two.... 

herbs, for example....

 and perhaps a cage or two...

(might as well maximize the real-estate while we are at it!)

Which could hold chickens or rabbits too!

(Just Think of the possibilities!)

One on either side..... 

with a hinging door.....

(Hinge still not added)

And the garden shelf above....

(still not added...)

So you can see, Dear Readers,

 what happens when you deviate

 even a little bit from the plan.....

But did I get my deep window sill?

 

Well, it's a start!

(It still needs all the trim....)

 

And with a temporary roof.....

And perhaps the suggestion of bedding.... 

oh, we have such a looooong way to go!

But I assure you, Dear Readers,

There will Always be A little bit more....

More to do and More that is done!

And I hope it will continue so for a Long Long time!