"The Dyeing Poison Dart Frog" - Santa Barbara Zoo Series

Private Commission

Birch and Brazilian Tigerwood - 6 Layers - 110 pieces

24” x 24”

My personal favorite of the zoo projects and the one I was most intimidated by had to be the Tree Frog! The spots, hands, and colors on this little guy really had my mind stumped. By taking a couple of views of this frog and designing with a full frame view I was able to create a design that really showed off how amazing this creature is up close!

I really wanted to do the Tree Frog justice with the amount of detail put into its body. Equally important was the background scenery to keep the frog to scale when shown at such a close view. I created a detailed leaf system to occupy the negative space and designed the frog to be sitting on a tree branch with a textured bark for its hands to grip onto. There are over 110 individual pieces in this design spread out over 6 layers. The complexity of these layers and the detail they contain were a huge challenge but created an amazing view of the tree frog seen to the right!

With such a detailed and busy design I had to be careful how I added color to the project. I created several mute greens to color the different leaves in the background and used a medium brown to provide color for the branch. The vibrant colors of the frog were dyed with multiple coats to create the brightest yellows and blues possible. The nearly hundred spots on the legs of the frog were handpainted after the blue color was dry. Finally, a frame of Brazilian Tigerwood was added to the design to tie the project together and bring a touch of the Brazilian rainforest to the Tree Frog!