Sunday, June 8, 2008

Exploring more ideas

Lets see.....where did I leave off?? I do believe at this point I have added a wash of gray. Just took a little bit of acrylic paint and watered it down.

Next, I added a bottom. I want this little door to have stairs! I have mounted the whole frame onto a piece of foamcore board.....and the added some height to the bottom of it. (This way I don't use so much of the paperclay.) I also learned to not cut my door before really looking at the arch it's going in. I cut it a little smaller than it needs to be.......oops! And of course I forgot to take a picture in between these steps. But as you can see I have built my stairs. (Remember, the paperclay shrinks~ but if you have gaps, you can fill them with 'moss'...I'll explain more later.) I also tried to make some rocks in the bottom corners~ I don't like them~ but they'll do. I broke out my son's watercolors to add a little bit more color to the stones. I wanted them each to look a little different. The lion-head-door-knocker was made out of polymer clay awhile ago...and I think it has found it's home. I also made the 'metal' bands on the door out of polymer clay.
I aged the clay with a wash of gray again, and then wiped off the extra.
And then came time to fill the gaps. I thought I had added enough clay to make up for the shrinkage problem, but I was wrong. Luckily, I had planned on adding moss to this door. And it nicely fills in those horrible gaps. Looking at this picture, I realize I need to blow off some stray foliage. I used the stuff that you can buy in the model train section at the craft store. I used the light green foliage. It comes in a web like form. You can just pull off small strands, and then I rolled them like a snake and added them where I thought they might grow.
And this is where I am at tonight. I still want to go back and add a little more moss around the top...it's not natural enough for me. I also added enough wash of gray...and now wish I had left the door alone. I liked it a little darker.This little door has no special place to go. I just wanted to experiment with the different ideas I have seen. I have a house that will one day need moss, now I can at least say I have some knowledge of how to use it, without having ruined something really expensive. I do think that one day I will use the paper clay again. I love the stone work, and would like to see it on a house. But for now, this door will probally get put into a shadowbox (when it's done), and be just that, a 3D picture of a door.


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