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.

The Degree Show

The degree show opened earlier this week and we had the private view on Tuesday.

To see how I made the tree piece click here and here.

And these are the deets for the house; walls, bricks, interior, paving, porch, appliances, front bedroom, rubbish bin, roof, back bedroom, details

Our business cards are all kept together in these specially made pigeon holes.

Here's Natalie modelling mine.

My work seems to be getting a fair bit of attention. I love seeing people walk around the entire house and peer into each window.

And so that you guys don't feel left out, here's a video showing my work so you can view it as if you're there!

(If you're one of my friends or family that are coming to see the show, don't watch this video. Spoilers people!)

The other artist who have work in this room are Clare Mills, Andy Reeve, Jon Jensen, and Will Reid.

Andy has already sold two of his piece. One of them was to John Hurt.

You know, famous actor John Hurt. He's the new provost for our university.

When he looked round he didn't seem to interest by my work, as he was too busy figuring out which of Andy's he was going to buy (the most expensive!).

But his wife had a good look at my work!

If you happen to be in Norwich the degree show is on until Tuesday 3rd July.

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.

Degree show tree

In addition to the house I'm making for my degree show, I'm also making a second piece that features a tree.

I've made a tree before and I was pretty proud of it -someone even bought it- which is why I thought I'd be able to successfully make another one.

Confirmation on that statement is still pending.

Here's how it's going so far.

I started with a lot of wire wrapped round a piece of wooden dowel which then branches out into..well..branches. 

I bought a whole heap (yeah, that's a technical term of measurement...) of Sculpey for this project, but only ended up using a quarter of it. More Sculpey for me!

I covered all the wire in Sculpey and I added some foil around the trunk before adding the Sculpey to bulk it out a bit.

Then, as you may know, Sculpey needs to be put in the oven to harden.

My tree only just fit in the oven! I had to take all the shelves out and was then worried that the tree would tip backwards into the flames.

The required time is between 15 and 30 minutes but when I opened the oven door after 6 minutes to check on it, a lot of smoke came out. So I thought I ought to abort the mission.

The 6 minutes was actually enough time to harden most of the branches but the trunk was still squidgy.

I put the tree back in the oven twice more with the door slightly open, but the trunk didn't get any harder.

So I gave up and went straight to painting it.

As I was painting it some of the bigger branches near the trunk started to fall apart a little bit.

Slight panic, but then I grabbed some small strips of newspaper and some watery PVA glue and papier-mached the tree Neil Buchanan style. 

The Sculpey is still squidgy under the newspaper, but at least it's not falling apart and I was able to finish painting it.

I'm not sure if the colour's exactly right yet, it's looking a bit grey, but trees aren't exactly brown. I like the texture I've got going on. 

Pipe cleaner Christmas tree

 Playmobile people deserve a Christmas tree too.

I think it might be a human right...

Here's a how I made this pipe cleaner Christmas tree for my dolls house.

Start off with one green pipe cleaner and bend three little legs on the end so it stands up.

If it's a little wonky that's ok; it just makes it more realistic. I mean, who's Christmas tree actually stands up perfectly straight?

I think using a tinsel pipe cleaner would look good too, especially a silver one.

Cut up pipe cleaners into varying lengths and twist then onto the main pipe cleaner, with the longest bits at the bottom.

I think I used four pipe cleaners in all.

I added additional branches to some of the lower parts to bulk it out a bit.

Then I added a gold tinsel pipe cleaner and some red beads for the baubles.

This photo doesn't show it too well but I also found a silver star shaped bead to go on the top.

To complete the scene in my dolls house I wrapped up some random items to go under the tree and I made some paper stockings to hang on the fireplace.

Tire swing, swinging on a tree

This my newest miniature.

A tree with a tire swing.

It was a long time in the making but I'm happy with the finished piece.

I had tried to make a tree earlier in the summer but, well, it didn't turn out too good.

We shall call it the fail tree.

This is the fail tree.

I used chicken wire and modrock which was fun at the time (minus the chicken wire scratches on my hands) but far too bulky to look like a real tree.

Then I gave up for a while until I saw this piece by Lori Nix.

A tree!
And she explained how she made it.

So I was all set to go again with a new method.

I twisted some wire into a tree shape.

Then I covered the wire in Fimo/polymer clay. I used whatever colours I had since it was going to be painted over anyway, hence the random pink.

To get a tree bark texture I screwed up some aluminium foil, flattened it out again and pressed it against the Fimo.

Once it had been cooked in the oven (only falling over in there once) I painted it.

Then I had to put on the leaves.

The stuff you can buy in hobby shops for model railways is far too expensive for something I wasn't even sure would work, so I improvised.

I bought a cheap sponge and tore it into tiny pieces that I painted green.

Then I stuck them to the tree with PVA glue. One by one. With a pair of tweezers.

The tire was also made with Fimo (can't get enough of it after the success of the copper kettles) and I got the tread pattern by imprinting it with the tire of a Playmobile car.

And that's how I made my tree!

Bottle top Christmas tree

Isn't it annoying how bottle tops can't be recycled like the rest of the plastics?

It just means we'll have to craft with them.

Making a bottle top Christmas tree uses 6 green milk bottle tops.

Cover the inside with PVA glue and fill them with whatever you have. The shinyer the better.
I used buttons, gems, sequins, glitter, tinsel pipe cleaner.

To make a Christmas card just stick the bottle tops on a folded piece of card and put a star at the top and something at the bottom for the base of the tree.

Kids might also like making a Christmas tree decoration by sticking the bottle tops to a thick piece of card with a hole in the top to thread string through.