Working in Miniature

My sewing machine packed up this week, after months of annoying inefficiencies, so I have been forced to cash in my meagre savings and buy a new one. I've never had a new sewing machine, so I am very excited. However, it is Easter weekend, so it will not arrive until Tuesday! I don't think I can go that long without making something, so I looked around for something small I could make by hand.
Some time ago I built a Fairytale Castle. I use the term "fairytale" loosely because it has dark turrets, gargoyles and sinister sigils on the walls, so it does have a certain "dark" feel to it. I was looking at it and thinking that one of the towers needed a princess inside.

 (All good castles need a princess in the tower...)

Rapunzel came to mind first, but to be honest, nothing so wholesome and "nice" stands a chance at Castle Cobweb and anyway, I like my princesses a little more exotic, so I set about creating a 3 inch princess to guard the tower, lest any wayward princes should happen to wander by.
I began by collecting materials. I had some scraps of fabric, pipe cleaners and a bit of very old polymer clay which remarkable had not gone completely hard (I always get the kind that needs baking, so I can work it soft if it's been in the cupboard for a while.)
I had a head which I made a long time ago and fitted it onto the end of a pipecleaner. I used the rest of the pipe cleaner to make the rest of her frame.

Already, I was getting an idea of what she would be like - a certain Eastern flavour was coming through...)

I then made some feet and hands from tiny balls of polymer clay and used a needle to make holes.

I fitted them, then baked the hands and feet according to the manufacturers instructions. Then I padded her body with a bit of wadding and glued some strips of old stocking material over the top.

When the hands and feet were "cooked" I glued them onto the wire frame.







Next, I made her undergarments out of some blue lining fabric, stitched criss-cross to resemble breeches "laced-on" in the ancient style. To be honest, her underthings won't really show, this is mostly for stability. The more I stitch onto and through the body, the stronger it is. Her clothes won't come off; they are part of the figure.

I used some purple lining to make the skirt; one tube for the skirt and two more for the sleeves, all stitched in place. For a figure this tiny, lining fabric is perfect as it is nice and thin and drapes well. It looks like thick taffeta.

Having made her under dress I added some gold braid around the wrists and a piece of gold organza for an over-tunic.

I decided to cut some of this away as it seemed too much and embellished her clothes with thin gold ribbon.

Then I painted her face with acrylic paints.

And painted her feet in black, for shoes.


Then glued some black acrylic hair on in layers.

Here she is finished. A much more feisty princess than those Disney lasses. This one won't be pining over handsome princes. She's far too busy!

I made her a telescope so she can stand lookout, and I'm thinking of possibly creating a bow and arrow. A girl can't be too careful...

Encore du papier

I applied the last layers of papier maché to my boxes. This sort of thing takes a long time to complete because each layer has to (at least almost) dry in-between layers.
But, for my final application, I used light-coloured paper, to give a smoother finish for painting.

It looks at bit dull and grey, but with a bit of decoration, it will be much smarter.

Here are the two boxes when dry:

I'm not entirely happy with the finish. Papier maché doesn't always work perfectly and in this case, some of it didn't adhere to the box very well, but it has produced a workable, stacking box system, which I can add to as I get more boxes, so it will do.

I painted the boxes purple, with some leftover emulsion, so here they are finished:

Le maché du papier

There's a woeful lack of storage in the Junksmith's studio, so when the last two veg boxes came in these stackable cardboard boxes, I knew it was time to indulge in a spot of papier maché.

The first thing I did was to cut out a piece from the front of the box, like so:

Then, I cut some pieces of gum-strip sealing tape (which I usually use to stretch paper) and went round all the edges, smoothing the surface: 

 

This makes the papier maché easier to apply.

Then I mixed up my glue. In a washing-up bowl (an old one, mind - I'm not going to use it for the dishes later!) I poured enough hot water to fill it to just under half. Then I added about a cup of powdered wallpaper paste (I've had half a packet hanging around for about four years, so I was glad of something to do with it!) And about the same amount of PVA glue. I mixed it all thoroughly and tore off a number of strips of newspaper.

Newspaper an tissue paper make the best papier maché because the paper breaks down quickly in water, but I do use other papers too.

Carefully, I then covered the entire box in soaked strips of newspaper, taking care to keep the hoes for stacking and lifting open.

It took quite a while, but I didn't want to rush it. It's important to get a nice smooth finish, so it is best to take the time over it.

Eventually, I had a fully covered box. 

When wet, it was quite wobbly and fragile, so I put it safely in the corner of the studio to dry.

Then I did the other one:

That was yesterday. Today, they were both almost dry, so I applied another layer. 

When they are dry, hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to add one more layer and then finish them off.

To make the two boxes nice and strong, I am aiming for about 6 layers of newspaper. Each application  gives me two layers of paper, with each strip overlapping. As I intend to keep things in the boxes and stack them on top of one another (and I'm hoping for more boxes in the future) I don't want them falling apart or warping under the weight, so all this work is worth it. They should last for ages when they're done.

Tonight thy look like this:

Watch this space.

The Sketchbooks

I stuck the tiny, rather sad-looking newspaper gondola inside the 'tragedy' mask this morning and added a bit of text (in Italian) to the piece, then left it all to dry.

I spent the rest of the day tidying up my sketchbooks, mending pages which had fallen out under the weight of all that creativity and making sure I had recorded all my ideas and research.
I find a sketchbook (mine are more like scrapbooks!) really invaluable in the creative process. It is like a portable brain where i can store anything I find, or think of, in relation to my project. I find I need a separate sketchbook for each project, otherwise my already scatterbrain gets quite a bit more muddled!

I'm going to share some of my ideas for making sketchbooks interesting and creatively pleasing. I enjoy preparing the sketchbook pages almost as much as the projects themselves.

1) Fold-out pages.
I'm infamous for my fold-out pages. I love to increase the visual area as much as possible and, coupled with my penchant for folding paper, I've created some interesting pages in my sketchbooks.
The simplest fold-out is a single fold. Take a piece of paper slightly smaller than your page and stuck one edge to the edge of your page. Instantly, both sides of the page are twice the size and you can fold it in when the book is stored.

The Bifold is an extension of this: Take a larger piece of paper and attach in the same way. Then fold out twice:

You can either fold it out concertina-style, or fold the edge in on itself.

I usually attach tabs to my fold-out pages. Anyone looking through the sketchbook can easily see that there is a fold-out and handle it with ease.

I also employ the same techniques if I have a picture or photo which is a bit too large for the page:

And sometimes i can create an optical illusion that way too!

Another fold-out is a multi-fold, where a longer and wider piece of paper is attached to a page. This then folds out in more than one direction. Oh, the fun that can be had with this!

Enough of fold-outs. You get the point. It's worth experimenting with.

2) Extra Pages

I sometime add pages, either by stitching or tying them in, or by taking the book apart and attaching a new page:

Extra pages can be added to the spine, or to the edge of a page, thereby creating a fold-out.

3) Decorated backgrounds

A decorated background can make a sketchbook page a lot more interesting. The only limit to this is creativity. I have used collage, paint, fabric, charcoal, pencil, photographs... etc, etc. Here are a few I made earlier:

There are numerous other things you can do with sketchbooks. They are perfect for exploring creative ideas, both in content and presentation.

Venetian Tragedy

Today, I am decorating the inside of my third mask - the Tragedy mask.
For my theme, I have looked a little at what everyday life for Venetians is like. There are a number of issues they face, but I have chosen to focus on one: flooding. It is common-place in Venice. So much so, that if you mention it to anyone, they shrug and say it happens every year, but the slow damage to the ancient city is an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of living in a city of water with the global climate changes we are all undergoing.

So, I first take the inside of my third mask, a printed map showing the Venetian flood zones and an italian newspaper.
I tore up a sheet of newspaper, removing pictures and headlines: I only want random text.

Soaking the newspaper in glue, I pasted the inside of the mask. After it had mostly dried (I used a hairdryer) I tore a piece of the map to fit inside my mask, not quite covering the whole area. Then, keeping as much water as possible off the front of the map, while pasting the back, I fitted the map inside the mask and sealed it down.

While this was all drying, I set to work on the foreground of my decor.

I cut an 8 inch square of newspaper (with dense print on both sides) and carefully made an origami gondola.

This wasn't the first paper gondola I had created. I had a practice run a couple of weeks ago with an old map:

but I wanted to use newspaper. My 8 inch paper gondola was too big, so I made another one with a 6 inch square piece of newspaper.

It was more fiddly to work with and I was glad I'd had a practice.

I was a little fragile, so to ensure it would withstand gallery conditions, I needed to glue all the flaps down and varnish it (carefully!)

I also varnished the inside of the mask, while I was about it.

When they are dry, I will stick them together, but that is a job for tomorrow...