Miniature Fireplace

This is what was in the package to the Petersiks from Young House Love.

A miniature replica of their fireplace!

I've been waiting until they'd posted about it to share it with you.

Which they have done. Check it out here, especially if you want a size comparison of the fireplace with a chihuahua. 

I've been known to make the occasional miniature fireplace and when I saw their post with a step by step of how they made their actual fireplace the two things connected.

I thought I would make their fireplace, and then maybe see if they wanted it. It's not like I had anything else to do (still no job).

This would also allow me to try using plastic materials which I'd been introduced to on the model making course I took, instead of card and wood.

Half way through the process of making the miniature the Petersiks announced they were moving house. At first I thought 'oh no!' but then it was even more of a reason why they should have this model. As a memento of the fireplace they built in their own house.

As soon as the model was finished I emailed a photo to the Petersiks and received the best email back from Sherry. It started with an excited 'AHHHHHHHHH!'

I love it when people are emotive over email, and Sherry is that fo sho.

#bloggerfangirlmoment

A few more emails back and forth and the mini fireplace was off to Virginia.

The hardest part of the model, or rather the most time consuming, was the tiling. I had to cut and then lay so many tiny tiles.

And then do the grouting.

The tiles were made from thin pvc card, painted with acrylic to look marble-y, and then cut in to individual tiles. 

Recreating the decorative trim was tricky, but achievable!

I'm really proud of this fireplace, and am pretty overwhelmed by the response it's got over on Young House Love.

I'm also really happy that I could give the Petersiks a way to take something with them from their old house to their old house.

Magnify Exhibition

I currently have some of my work on display at the Letchworth Arts Centre.

They had a gap in their calender for April and offered me the space.

I'm showing six of my miniature models.

I've put them on plinths and arranged them so they can be walked around as much as possible.

It's like a creepy model village!

I had thought about putting them on the shelf but I like them on plinths better.

It also means a lot less drilling into the wall.

I was given the cafe gallery which has some nice wall space, but they only work for 2D art.

So instead of displaying some of the my paintings which would have been unrelated to my miniatures I invited my friend Natalie to exhibit with me.

Natalie is my friend from uni, we shared a studio space, and I thought her miniature portraits would work well with my miniature models.

We even made it into the paper.

New Miniature

The wall I showed you earlier was for this new miniature piece.

Like most of my other pieces it has a dark narrative.

The wall is screwed to the base which is two layers of MDF; one for the road and one for the pavement, making this probably my sturdiest piece ever. 

The road is cork as it has a similar texture to tarmac. It painted it grey and then went over it will chalk and charcoal. I also dug at it with a craft knife to create cracks and potholes.

The hedge round the corner is made from another kind of foam with dried tea and mixed herbs glued to it to create a leafy texture, which has then been painted all kinds of green.

I weathered the bouquets of flowers I'd made by crushing them a little and dripping brown paint water on them.

What do you think?

Check out my wall

After my Scale Model  Making course I wanted to use one of the techniques I learnt so I made this wall.

Bricks I've done before, but flint cobbles? New territory time.

Here's how I did it

I took this photo by balancing the camera on my wrist. Fun fact.

The key is Sculpey!

Mark out the pattern in a lump of Sculpey.

I also molded the back of the Sculpey to fit my fingers for easy grippin'.

Once the Sculpey has been baked it's ready to imprint into the kapa-line foam.

This stuff is amazing.

When I tried the Sculpey on a test piece I may have leapt about exclaiming, 'It worked! It worked!'

I'd already stuck the foam to a piece of MDF so then I built the rest of the wall around it; the tiles on the top and the brick pillar on the end.

I painted the entire thing a mortar colour, making sure to get into all of the cracks.

Then I used a dry brush to paint the stones as this would pick up the pattern.

When I was in 6th form my Dad built a brick wall in our back garden. For that time I was pretty much an abandoned child cos he loved that wall more than me. Then my friends got in on the act and one time came over to my house just to hang out with the wall. They even brought a brick in to school dressed up like me, and said they preferred brick-Lisa (yup, we were the cool kids in school, obvs). It was a tough time.

But now I get it. I love this tiny wall like a child and I'm proud of everything it's accomplished. 

Geez, I need a job.

Acme building

The Acme building is finished!

You can see progress of this project here and here.

I put a Kenny Chesney poster in the window because that's what was there when I saw the building in person.

I did my best to distress the brick work like the original building.

I think these are the best windows I've ever made. Might have something to do with using a super sharp scalpel for a change. 

The the roads signs I printed out the images from the internet (finding the right ones took a lot longer than I thought it would) and taped them to a thin brass rod which I stuck in holes that I'd drilled in the MDF base.

Now I'm off to put this in an exhibition with a few of my other pieces!

Scale Model Making

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I recently completed a scale model making short course at Central Saint Martins.

It was really good; the class size was small so we got a lot of attention from the tutor (who is the author of the book I mention way back here), I learnt a lot of new techniques, and one of the guys on the course brought in cakes his wife had made for us! 

The best thing I made was this brick wall.

It's made from Kapa-line foamboard. I've tried a few different methods of making bricks before (here, here and here) but this is by far the easiest and most effective.

As it's foam you can just push into with a pencil and make marks. I also used a wire brush to texture the surface.

On the other side we made an interior wall including door and window frames.

I haven't finished wallpapering it yet, but you get the idea.

This was all made with PVC sheets, another material I'd never used before.

We also had a go at making figures and trees (both unfinished, obvs).

The figure is made of Sculpey around a wire armature.

The tree is made from wire mesh, another kind of foam, and eggshells!

And then there's these chairs that I love.

The larger one is made of the kapa-line foam and has been treated with resin to make it more durable.

I could paint it, but I quite like it the way it is.

The small chair is made of stencil card.

They're both stuck together with super glue (the cheap stuff from Poundland is just as good as the expensive stuff) and yes I almost stuck my fingers together/to my work many times.

It was a great course and I think my art work is really going to benefit from it.

Bus bench

As part of the miniature model I'm currently making - the Acme Farm Supply building in Nashville - I've had to make a bus bench.

I've got a lot of my own source photos because for some reason, second to photos of the food we ate, my sister and I took a lot of photos of us on bus benches around the city.

I had no idea how to go about making the bench so I asked my model making tutor for some advice.

He suggested using the kappa-line foam we've been using in class.

I started by cutting out the end pieces of the bench out of PVC card and sticking them to the ends of a piece of foam.

Then I sanded the foam until it was the same shape as the end pieces.

I painted the foam black and added the rails made of plastic covered wire which was conveniently already black.

I printed out a poster for the back which I stuck to some more PVC card and added feet details to the bench legs.

Then all I had to do was attach it to the main model.

Miniature progress

I've finally started a new miniature project I've been wanting to do make since October.

I've chosen to make a replica of the Acme Farm Supply building in downtown Nashville.

That's the white building in this photo I took when I was there.

The only other replicas I've made were my bedroom and Holly's fireplace. I think they're more challenging then creating something entirely imagined but  I walked through a lot of Nashville and New York thinking, 'I want to make it all in miniature!'

This was the only photo of the building I took so I've found a really useful image on google, and google map street view has been really helpful as it allows me to see the building from all angles.

Here are a few shots of my progress so far.

The front of the building is made of thick card board.

Usually I would print the bricks on using a stamp made from a rubber, but the bricks on this building work out as 1x4mm which is far too small for a stamp. So instead I've roughly scored horizontal lines, 1mm apart, across the cardboard which should give the impression of bricks.

A major feature of the building is the brickwork at the top which I made from 6 layers of paper, all cut to the correct size and then glued together.

One of the things that I like about this building is how distressed it is with raw bricks showing through the white paint. So today I've been working on achieving that look.

I've made more notes and diagrams with this piece than I have with my other pieces, but I wanted to make sure I do it properly.

I can definitely see how I've improved as a model maker compared to when I started making models about two and half years ago.

Miniature Candlesticks

I had a recent commission for a miniature fireplace so I thought I would share how I made the miniature candlesticks.

All you need is two wooden kebab skewers, or cocktail sticks for smaller candles, four round beads and two flatter beads. It doesn't matter what colour as they'll get painted.

Cut the kebab skewers to the desired length, mine were 5cm, and glue the flatter beads at the bottom, then a round bead, and then a bit further up the second round bead.

Then you just need to paint them.

I went for cream for the candles and gold for the sticks.

A few coats of acrylic paint covered up the brightly coloured plastic beads.

Here they are displayed on a miniature fireplace, simply glued in place.

Behold, the miniature Christmas fireplace

Here are my finished miniature Christmas fireplaces!!

Since you can't really tell, the size of them is approximately 11cm wide, 9cm tall and 2.5cm deep.

That last one isn't approximate. I know that one fo sho.  

I love these candle sticks.

The white on white makes it a bit hard to see them, but I can assure you; they're pretty darn awesome.

Mini Christmas presents!

Feel free to imagine mini pairs of socks and mini boxes of chocolates.

It's really bits of cardboard wrapped up though.

Sophisticated fireplace.

All those green and gold bits were individually glued on. Thank you tweezers.

This one is my favourite.

Which one's yours?