Gracious Gifts: Map Painting

   So this is actually a gift I created two Christmases ago. I just kept forgetting to post about it but I just got a new laptop and am trying to organize everything. In searching through my photos, I found these. I created this for my boyfriend because he loves maps. I picked gray for the countries (there are 10 shades there) because after blue (which clearly had to be used for the water) it is his favorite color. I used this projection method again. Because I am a bit OCD, I had to make sure no same colors touched, so I had to number each country’s paint color (1-10) before painting. Yes, you really do need 10 different colors, Africa and Eastern Europe gets a bit tricky. This project was a labor of love, it took me about 2-3 weeks. I painted in between studying for finals. I would study for 45 minutes then paint for 15. I needed about 3 layers of paint so there was a lot of drying time. It wasn’t too tricky just time consuming. I used a black paint pen to trace the country outlines and used Martha Stewart Gloss Finish to seal it once done (about 3 layers again). I also put foam core board behind it, so you could place pins in it. It is 36 by 48 inches.