I was charged with crafting custom art for an eight-year-old's bedroom makeover in which the little girl asked for the theme to be "beachy and include sandpipers" (she became fascinated with the shorebirds while vacationing in Cayman with her family). I started by creating a digital rendering of the design as my blueprint…

…and the process continued, beginning with the raw boards (recycled from an old wooden fence), to hand painting, and eventually "weathering" of the sign to lend an authentic feel.