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Over the next 10 days (a two week break between classes) I have a ton of homework to complete! Here's a close-up
of the process used to create the wooden pegs in the flooring. This time, it is the second floor and part of our
"homework" to finish before we resume classes in 11 more days.
I love the little brass hammer, I bought it on a whim several years ago because it was so cute, but it turned out
to be very handy to get into small places and hammer a relatively delicate toothpick without having it splinter.
Next I will sand down the boards and pegs with a hand sander and stain both sides. |
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Here it is, the finished second floor. There are no new techniques to mention since it is almost identical to the
first floor. But it took me 4+ hours to make start to finish! I also scored
and stained the underside as well, since it will be seen as the ceiling of the first floor. However, not many
people will see it unless they plan on sticking their heads inside of the house when it's finished! |
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Now I'm working on putting paperclay on the exterior of the house. I started with the small brick-inset on either
side of the bay window. These took me forever to get just right, I spent 1.5 hours getting this and the other side
done! I will also need to go in and clean up the woodwork with some more stain to cover the paperclay.
I'm going to have to make up some time by getting the rest of the paperclay exterior of the house to go a bit quicker.
But since it will not require any major detail work (like bricks, etc) I do think it will go faster. One tough
thing about homework is that without other people around in the class to gauge your own speed against, it's easy
to get "lost" in details. |
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And for those of you who wonder if a child could do this, here's a sample of brickwork my 11 year old daughter
made from paperclay - and without any optimal tools since mom was busy using all of them! And she did this in a
fraction of the time it took me to complete the two sides of the brickwork in the bay window. She's eager to make
a miniature house using the same techniques! |
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I had about an hour of free time today to work on my cottage, and I decided to do some detail work and drill peg
holes in the outside woodwork. But I wanted to use my new Dremel tool with the long attachment so I could drill
as if I was holding a "pen". Here's a picture of the Dremel with the attachment - the end is not much
different in size or dimension than the ball point pen..
Of course, since this toy (serious equipment) of mine is new, I didn't realize I did not have a 1/16th inch drill
bit or a small enough culottes (the thing that squeezes shut to hold the bit in place), so my little "1 hour"
project turned into something closer to 2 hours to allow a quick trip to the local hardware store. |
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This really didn't take very long once I had the Dremel set up. It's the same as the pegs in the wooden floor,
except I didn't pound the nails in completely flush/sand them down. I used a ball-point pen to mark where I was
going to drill.
I highly recommend the attachment "pen" for work like this, my accuracy went up greatly when using it.
I was able to better actually drill exactly where I placed my mark. |
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Here's a close-up of the finished peg work after it has been stained. |
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In case you were wondering about the waddle - here it is, looking a bit of a mess - the area behind the waddle
was first painted black so no white would show through the weave of the waddle. The idea is that the waddle will
show up where the stucco is peeling and falling off.
You can also see more pegs in the door frame, they seem to show up more clearly here. |
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Now I am putting paperclay on the outside and it took me about 2 hours to wrap around 1/2 of the house. I am going
in large geometric shaped swatches - I roll out a large piece - eye it up what section I want to cover and cut
to size - and then lay it onto the side of the house. (Don't forget to use glue to adhere the paperclay to the
side of the house!) Any excess is trimmed off with a clay tool.
Windows are actually easy, just ignore them until you have the swatch smoothed out and then use the clay working
tool to cut out the hole.
On the left side of the picture you can see where I am joining the two sections of paperclay. The left swatch of
paperclay is already stippled (textured) and as soon as I finish the top triangle section, I will texturize it
to blend in. |
