Degree show tree progress

You've seen the tree I'm making for my degree show piece so now I'll show you some progress on the rest of the piece.

The tree slots into a hole in a piece of wood which is attached to a piece of MDF.

The MDF is 45x55cm which is the same size as the top of my plinths.

To make the mound which the tree sits atop a scrunched up newspaper around the block of wood and then papier mached over the whole thing to create a gradual slope. 

Then I put the whole thing in the airing cupboard to dry.

Unfortunately all that water and glue from the papier mache-ing caused the MDF to warp. All four corners were bending upwards.

Mega annoying.

To try and fix this I coated the underside of the MDF with watered down PVA and then balanced it on a roll of masking tape. I put stacks of heavy books on each corner to pull them down.

I did this a few times and it has helped, but it's still not perfect.

I painted the mound first with a mixture of brown paint, glue and dried tea and coffee.

Yummy.

I used this mixture to build up an area around the tree.

Then I painted over some of the brown with green as a base colour for the grass.

For the grass I bought some grass scatter from Ebay from a seller that specialises in model railway supplies.

Up until now I'd managed to avoid using supplies like this, but I couldn't think of an alternative way to make the grass.

Then I started making some tyre tracks.

Stay tuned to find out what that's about.