Category: modern miniatures

Wroughting Iron, Again

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The human hand often makes the best gluing jig, yes? After considerable deliberation about style, I’m making a salvaged wrought iron railing for the wee balcony off the Argo Wool Works showroom. These are portions of the same laser cut panels from JMG Miniatures used in the Sea House Warming Hut. The best thing about making “vintage” wrought iron is the globbier the glue and the cruddier the paint job, the more scale authenticity.

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Observe my current working conditions. The railing joints are reinforced with black paper brackets and “bolts”, which add tremendous stability to the fragile structure.

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Scarlett was on her way to inspect my suspiciously-tinkling glass of white wine (Layer Cake Sauvignon Blanc, vintage 2015, lovely). Soon after, she sat down on the many 1/16-inch punched bolts (and x-acto knife, etc.) which clung to her fur and trailed after as she sped on to the next investigation. (The dots clung, not the knife :)

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The railing installed, with mounting brackets. It appears a bit too “freshly painted”, so I want to hunt down some examples in the wild to see how they oxidize. But not too much. Structural integrity is important :) Also made brackets for the scythe from Sir Thomas Thumb, which will support some sort of sign. Perhaps Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate?

Nah. Probably just Argo Wool Works.

Argo Wool Works, Plastic Litter Collage, Scarlett

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After serious depredation wrought between new kitten and granddaughter, I had to relocate the Argo Wool Works build from my worktable to a higher shelf. This made working on it difficult, and me sad.

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Frustrated, I’ve moved it back to the worktable, and hope to protect it from marauders by covering with a dropcloth when I’m not present to defend it.

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I made small progress with the lights.

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And spent considerable time thinking anew about the interior.

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In other news, the plastic litter collage is complete, and made its debut in the Pacifica Beach Coalition booth at the 31st annual Fogfest celebration. I noticed it suffered some depredation of its own, as it came back with some pieces missing. Seriously, who steals trash art?!

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Scarlett is three months old, and thriving. Our older boy cats have resigned themselves to her presence, tolerating, and even initiating play.

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Here she is complaining about a recent heat wave, from her in perch in another relocated (and depredated) build, my first-ever Loft (1)961.

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Wish me luck!

 

 

 

Nope.

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I am not going to meet the HBS bloggers build deadline for September 26, 2016, and I am using cute kitten photos to distract from my mingled sense of failure, regret and self loathing.

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I *have* met all my work and all most of my volunteer deadlines.

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Feel free to judge me, but look at my belly first :)

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Though I will continue — and finish —  the build, I’m more than a bit scattered and distracted with other projects.

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Sweet dreams, best beloveds.

 

Fairies’ve Got Mail

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The still-vacant relocated fairies’ house has become a topic of speculation and delight in our neighborhood. My neighbor alerted me that the fairies had received mail. As caretaker, I brought it in for them. Above is a note from 5-year-old Ava, with a drawing of a fairy.

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This is from her sister Aria, aged 3. Somewhat more abstract and, I believe, collaborative.

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So I made a proper mailbox.

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Had a fairy named Poppy write thank you scrolls in sparkly silver ink tied up with blue silk ribbon.

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And installed it streetside. This should be fun :)

 

Retro Sofa Upholstery

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I did as much as I could last night on the retro sofa kit from Kris Compas, before I needed to decide on the fabric. This is the base, seat and back cushions padded out with batting, and the back (being held in place with rubber bands until the glue cures). The dots mark the tufting positions (with a small correction).

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I surprised myself somewhat by going with the gold and blue fans — originally I thought the Paisley. Thank you all for your input. It was fun and interesting to hear what you would choose. This piece is the covering for the bottom of the sofa.

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Here is the curved back. There is rather a lot of triangular notching to do.

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The back glued on to the seat base. Silk is slippery to cut and glue straight!

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The sofa so far. Next up is tufting and covering the back cushion, making the buttons (with the cute button press supplied with the kit), making the piping or braid, and painting and attaching the legs. Oh, and pillows. More tie silk fabric choices!

 

Retro Sofa

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Kris Compas had two new kits up in her Etsy shop, this sofa and some equally awesome chairs. I chose the sofa kit for the Argo Wool Works showroom porch.

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I want to use tie silk for the upholstery. But which one? Thanks to the generosity of friends, I have a curated collection of about 30 ties from which to choose. I’ve narrowed it down to these six:

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Blue, gray and black Escher flying fish.

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Ivory and black dots, which I used on this bench:

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Leaping trout on a burgundy background

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Blue and white Paisley on black

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Multicolored truncated ovals on burgundy

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Gold and blue fans on pale yellow

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I feel like my granddaughter, Maddie Lou, making decisions with the happy abundance of choices.

Which one would you pick?

 

 

Foundations, Éclairs

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Attempting to integrate the show-through back wall brick arch, I built a few brick foundation ruins.

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After sealing the bricks, I mortared them with DAP CrackShot.

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They have been since grunged, weathered and eroded, and cast into the background.

More importantly, we celebrated my husband’s birthday with the question, What is your spirit animal éclair?

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We received so many heartfelt responses, mostly off the list of the available tiny animal figurines. Sloth, hyena, bunny… nope. Thus far, B has resonated with rhino and lion. I found the tiger encased on its side in delicious dark chocolate this morning; I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

 

 

Glue, Sneak Peak

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This is a reality shot of miniature landscaping.

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And this is a super secret in-process shot of a project unrelated to miniatures… 15 x 20-inch (38.21 x 50.7 cm ) watercolor cold process block pages painted in a matte acrylic wash. Pretty! Also, I’m surprised there are no cats sitting on them, dry or otherwise.

Back Brick Arch

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After tipping the build backside up, and using the same pattern as on the inside wall, I glued on the bricks and sealed them with Mod Podge. I favor these bricks by Andi Mini Brick & Stone because they’re a solid color throughout, well-priced, and easy to cut.

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Mortared with a palette knife and gloved fingers, using DAP Crack Shot. This and the following shot were photographed at night by ambient light of my Luxo lamp, hence the color variations.

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Gruzz brushed on with gray and deep green powdered pastel.

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Finishing out the rest of the farmer style board-and-batten siding. Yay for using up offcuts. Fooling around with preserved reindeer moss, mostly roots and mid-structure  (rather than the rounded top mounds) to give a slightly more lichen-y feel.

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The finished-for-now back wall. I added some floor board remnants and foundation elements to the existing structure. After carving out a lot of mortar and rounding all the exposed brick corners, I sea-sponged on a thin white wash of white acrylic, then re-scrubbed individual bricks clean. The siding nailheads are made with a soft-leaded pencil tip rotated in place, then wiped downwards with a fingertip to create stain trails. Convincing!

Now I have to do a bit of research on street names and sign styles of 1906 San Francisco. I’m tempted to use my old address, but have to see if the area was even developed then. (It was in the outer Richmond, near the backside of Sutro Park.) Alternately I could cut a very fine stencil of the Argo Wool Works logo

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to paint on the bricked-in arch, which might look something like this:

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My final offering is this delightful piece filled with the pure light of truth, by one of my very favorite contemporary writers, Mallory Ortberg of the-toast.net

Everything That’s Wrong Of Raccoons

It’s satisfying to read aloud.