A New Year Long Series

Now that I'm all caught up with posts of last year's series, I think it's time to talk about the series I will be working on this year. (which actually kind of started last year but literally in the last week of the year, so....). I'm tentatively calling it "A Year Of Doors" (which might stick or might get changed, I don't know yet lol).

  I really like the idea of having a series that was made up of small projects that I could (at least in theory) work on and finish all in one weekend/a day or two, and thought I might like to do another similar series.  The inspiration for this series actually comes from a couple different places.  One of which is one of my Pinterest boards that I had been pinning to for a while, but wasn't sure I'd ever really be able to use most of the ideas.  I love making wreaths, and decorating the front door and around it on our porch for various seasons and holidays, and I had been pinning wreath ideas for quite some while, but of course I only have limited doors in my real house (and limited storage space for wreaths) and I pretty much already have wreaths for everything. I don't think I'll be getting rid of any of them anytime soon and changing them out for a different one, because I still really like them all and they are all still in good shape, so it doesn't look promising for much full size wreath making in the near future.  The other inspiration was that last spring we visited my aunt and uncle in Georgia who live in the Atlanta area and one of the things we did while we were there was to spend part of a day looking for some of the installations for the Atlanta street art project Tiny Doors ATL.  Which is just what it sounds like tiny (dollhouse sized) doors in various location around the city. Which were so cute and awesome! We weren't able to see all of them, but we definitely plan on taking a day to find as many of the rest as we can next time we are down that way!.

  So towards the end of the year, between Christmas and New Years as I was starting to think about this year, the idea came to me to do a series of tiny doors of my own. I wanted to have another series of quick little projects, and also it would give me an opportunity to make some of the wreath ideas I had saved on Pinterest.

I first thought to just do holidays, but then I decided I would do one for each month and work on them one at a time throughout the year in the month they represented. (which truth be told it's now mid April and I've yet to completely finish any of them, but I'm hoping to take some time out later this week or next week and get caught up lol).  I debated a bit about what scale I wanted to do them in, I knew I didn't probably want to go as big as 1:12 just for the sake of not taking up so much room to display them all together when they are completed, but I did consider if I wanted to do them in 1:24 scale to be a little bigger and different than my typical 1:48 scale work.  In the end I did decide to just stick with quarter scale, with really two major reasons for making that choice.  For one, along with all the other planning decisions, I was contemplating how they would be displayed when finished, keep in mind they are just going to be front doors and the surrounding facade/house front area so they needed to be mounted in or on something for display.  I toyed with the idea of frames and a couple other things (frames being the leader) until I came across a piece I had purchased quite a while ago at Michael's, thinking it would be good to do some sort of miniature scenes in.  It is an unfinished wood tray/shadow box with 6 compartments and I decided that it would be perfect for the doors. (I do have to get a second one though since there will be 12 doors)  The size of each compartment pretty much limited me to 1:48, but along with that the other main factor that played a role in the choice was that I would be able to possibly use items/supplies I already had.

So once all that was settled I started looking for more specific ideas for each door scene.  I wanted to kind of have a basic idea of what each month was going to be from the get go so that I could plan ahead a bit and make sure each door was different and unique. (which actually was another thing I took a little time debating.  I wasn't sure at first if I wanted all the doors the same and the decor just changed for each month or if I wanted each one completely unique, obviously I decided on each one unique.... I thought certain decorations would look better with certain style and colors and also couldn't decide what one style of door/facade I would want).  I decided to get started on the project right away and go ahead and do the December door in December 2019 so that the series would be completed by the end of November this year so that if I wanted to use it for the miniature show I participate in in December it would be ready to go...... and also because I was excited about it and wanted to get started right away..... And I did get started on it right away, but did not get very far immediately because I needed to get a few things for it, and then as typically happens to me I ended up getting wrapped up in other things and have only sat down to try to work on it again for a couple minutes here and there since then.  Of course now its April and I'm 4-5 months behind on the project, but we're also in the middle of a global pandemic and all supposed to be staying home as much as possible and social distancing, so, what better time to devote a few days to getting caught up. (good thing they are quick projects haha).  But for this post, if you've made it this far with practically no pictures, here's a few quick sketches I did for the plans for the first few doors, which should be fun to see how much changes in the actual making of the door.... (Also these aren't the best quality images for viewing over screen because the original sketches were just pencil on paper.... I did copy them and color them in some, partly to get a better idea of how the colors I planned actually look and partly to give a better idea for people seeing them on here or through other types of digital media.  If you click on the picture to view it full size it might make the original sketches a bit easier to see, but if not than just ignore them and enjoy the colored ones lol....)

I of course also am planning to finish Whimsy Street Shopping District this year as well, and am planning to get back to working steadily on the bookstore within the next month or two, but I really want to get this series caught up first....