I don’t know about you all, but once I get an image in my head, it sort of becomes an itch I have to scratch. This has become worse and worse with my glowforge being here. So there I was, sitting on my couch last night thinking, “Gee, it’s been a couple of days since lasering something, I should rea-” AND BOOM it hits me. Pineapples. I live in Hawaii, and the pineapple is king here! Get it? Because it has a crown…Moving on!
So I sit there, and sit there, and debate on whether 10pm is too late to start the design work (it was/wasn’t but definitely too late to start up the g-unit). I google searched some pineapple images for inspiration and found a couple that I liked. I eventually found the perfect one and began to make it personal. Turns out the first image, which I originally intended to use was not coming out the way I intended (I may go back to it, but it was more work than I wanted to do and it was getting late). I ended up choosing my second pineapple design, and as it was sitting in AI, again inspiration hit me and I found myself wondering why I didn’t just try out throwing my name in it. Cut a section out, added some lines and my name, and that’s when the magic finally settled in my mind. The itch I get is only ever satisfied after hours of playing with a design, even if I feel like I’m already done with it. Here are the results first in png
My wife keeps telling me that I need to start selling these little things I’m making, and I’m starting to think she’s right. I’ve ordered magnets from Amazon as well as keychains, so wish me luck in the future!
Ray, do you have any local hardwood that has a strong yellow colour ?
Just a thought. Last week I had to grub out an old thorn bush of some kind, no idea what, but the small branches were bright yellow.
You’re so right. Some of my best work was done after 10pm! I used to do crayon art, and I would consistently find myself working into the 1-2am hours because I started so late In fact, one of my original intentions was to try and see the effects the laser would have one canvas after melting crayon onto it. Here’s something I did for my best friend for their anniversary a while back.
I hadn’t thought specifically of restaurant name tags, but I did consider using them as pins! The Dole plantation is here on Oahu so maybe they’d be interested…My wife even mentioned that they would be cute as tie pins, so I may need to look into buying some pin blanks
Perhaps more on the town side of the island, but I don’t make it over there too often. You, my friend, are very smart for bringing this to my attention though! I’ve been experimenting primarily with proofgrade as this is my first laser, but I’ve been wanting to broaden my horizons (I’ve used cardboard and cardstock so far). I’ll have to look into it, because there are a plethora of wood types that I’ve been curious to try.
Also, now thinking about the possibilities of this particular print, I may have to get some nice shimmery paint. I think a deep gold color for the base and forest green for the crown would be fantastic…great. Now I’m going down the rabbit hole again!
Thanks! What’s funny is that I hadn’t heard of such a thing until my best friend had said I should make one for my girlfriend for Christmas (who is now my wife, and I proposed to her with a crayon art!). What’s crazy is when I originally started I would lay down Scotch tape later by layer, print out a design onto paper and then by hand cut out the design into the tape. I eventually invested in a vinyl cutter because I was wanting to do more intricate designs and not spend 10hours on cutting In the end, each one would still take me 3 or more hours to do based on the design, gluing and melting the crayons, and then scraping off any excess crayon that may have gotten under the vinyl. I recommend anyone try it - it’s an incredibly fun project and relatively simple!
I certainly hope so. I had friends that would get frustrated at their results and ask why mine always came out better, the only answer was experience and patience (also being a smidge OCD).
The one I did when proposing to my wife is when I “retired” from making them. They’re incredibly time consuming and require all of my attention, I’m sure some of you have experienced the Zen moment where time just flows. Perhaps because of my need to perfect it, I was causing myself more stress than fun in the end as well, but there have been many times over the last several years when I’ve wanted to pick my heat gun back up. I would buy paint sticks, cut them down, sand them, then glue them to the back of the canvas boards to help with rigidity. The canvas board tended to warp with the hot wax, and it gave a great place to hang them as well. Anyway, thanks for taking interest in it, as well as giving me support!
Those are AWESOME!!! you shouldn’t have retired…
But maybe with the you’ll be able to do some neat tricks with crayon shavings and fancy laser cut stencils…
Haha I didn’t formally retire, but I too am interested in the possibilities of my creativity + + crayons equals. I just wish that I didn’t leave all my supplies including the near thousands of leftover crayons back on the mainland, but at the time they were non-essential to the move. Over the next few weeks I’ll have to start gathering at least the bare minimums required to make one and play around with the settings. I don’t think @dan and the team is going to roll out a crayon proofgrade material anytime soon. To be honest it’s kind of exciting to think about!
My 10th grade english teacher had taught us to try to reuse the same word as few times as possible. Since then, the thesaurus, as well as my own imagination, have really guided me to better sentence and story structure!
My wife, too, loves pineapples! She’s requesting that I do palm trees next, which I am also intrigued by, so stay tuned for that!
In fact, one of my original intentions was to try and see the effects the laser would have one canvas after melting crayon onto it. Here’s something I did for my best friend for their anniversary a while back.
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In the end, each one would still take me 3 or more hours to do based on the design, gluing and melting the crayons, and then scraping off any excess crayon that may have gotten under the vinyl. I recommend anyone try it - it’s an incredibly fun project and relatively simple!
you’ll be able to do some neat tricks with crayon shavings and fancy laser cut stencils…
of leftover crayons back on the mainland, but at the time they were non-essential to the move. Over the next few weeks I’ll have to start gathering at least the bare minimums required to make one and play around with the settings. I don’t think 