SOME PRETTY NICE STUFF

Here’s my first shot at making 1:12 bowls. Now to fill them with food!

Just finished making the spruce needles for an Amanita fulva sculpture. I scored this commission the day I finished the last one, and let me tell you, nothing feels better.

A. fulva’s habitat is mostly pine/spruce (I don’t know the difference yet) so the forest floor is covered in needles. I made three variations in color for the needles, each is in a different stage of drying after falling off the tree. I made them by rolling out thin clay, making thin cuts, and then baking. I sanded them so each would have a tight, uniform shape and a point on the end. Since I snapped so many while sanding them, I have plenty of bits for broken pieces too. After baking I began giving them color using chalk pastels and water, and acrylics. A lot of subtle details came out here.

Pieces of bark, seeds, sticks, rocks, and other pieces are up next to be made. The mushroom, at least the cap, will be made last because I need to do some problem solving. I don’t have a pasta machine, but I need to make a gradient and to be able to evenly roll some clay out very thin. 

I spent a good amount of time working on these pretzels. They ended up being too big for 1:12 scale and there were issues with the salt. 

I made the salt by baking a small slab of translucent clay and cutting tiny bits with the xacto knife. They looked great! I attached them by dipping each tiny bit into some liquid translucent clay. It was after baking them I found that the liquid clay wicks up the chalk pastel underneath. The salt bits only show the color under them, so they are brown now too.

I decided to glue these around Odense so that they are out in the world and not on my shelf.

Amanita muscaria 4 polymer clay, chalk pastel, acrylic paint, varnish available

After the last Amanita muscaria, I wanted everything to be more realistic. The mushroom is in an early stage, when the vale is still attached to the cap and still covers the gills. The spots are dense around the bottom of the cap at this stage. Other elements, like the moss and lichen, were all a process of trying--especially that moss. 

The sculpture started with a ball of aluminum wrapped in masking tape for the base. A wire passes through the base as a support beam for the mushroom. 

The soil and rocks went on first. These took a couple of solid days to get placed and detailed. Each color I used became a type of rock and is detailed as such.

The twig, made of a wire armature, went on next. I wanted it to look like it fell in just the right way to rest on these two rocks, and the mushroom has grown next to it.

The most time was spent on the several tries it took to form the moss. I wanted it to look like it had life, like it was growing, and I wanted to be able to see individual leaves.  This meant it couldn’t be clay stuck to the flat surface of the base like previous sculptures, it need to get off the ground on its own. I used the thinnest wire I had, wrapped it with masking tape, and began putting on individual leaves. The fourth try was the successful one. After they were baked, they were ready to stick into the base. More moss went on at the base of each moss piece. 

I used Xanthoria parietina, a super common lichen, as reference. I loved getting a close look at the tiny, orange circular structures that form in the middle of X. parietina. I sculpted them in two “pieces”, the main structure and the orange growths. They were made on wax paper, frozen, then applied to the rock.

The mushroom’s base went on, then it was detailed. I changed the way I made the texture on the stem, no longer adding clay to it, but working with what was there already. This made the stem’s detail more subtle and realistic. The cap started out as a ball of aluminum and fit onto the stem. The spots went on, as well as some color detail with chalk pastels. I changed the spots from previous sculptures. This time they turned out much more realistic, they have a better shape and texture.

After it was baked, the base rock and more small rocks and moss were added to tie those two pieces together more seamlessly. Then it was baked again.

The last step was to detail with acrylics and add gloss to the cap.

1:12 scale baguettes

I started these two baguettes last night at a friend’s place and I finished them this morning with a bake and final details with acrylics. 

I have been working on the next Amanita off and on for a month or so. The sculpting is finished, the chalk pastels are on, and now it’s time for acrylic. Here I am painting one of the larger rocks, adding some worn spots.

I felt like making a few single pancakes to have around, just in case, in 1:12 scale. The middle one browned a little extra in the pan so it gets two pads of butter.

1:12 scale doughnuts with pastry boxes

As a side project during the long mushroom sculpture, I took some clay to a friend’s place for the evening and I mixed up three batches of cookies. There’s milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate with cranberries. The chocolate chunks are pre-baked slabs cut into chunks.

I made the cutting board from scrap wood from a fruit crate and stained it with linseed oil.

The pastry box was quicker than I expected, but a bit tedious and not quite the right design for cookies. Luckily I have an old embossing kit with perforation blades on tiny rotary tool for tiny creases, and acetate for the window.

Amanita muscaria 3

The third Amanita pushed realism further, but it missed the mark in a couple of spots. The rocks have a flimsy quality to them and lack detail for their size, but they do a great job as a base for the piece. This is the first sculpture I used pastels on to color the whites of the mushroom. This came out nice, but it’s still a little off. I learned that the pastel flies everywhere, so it’s best to apply it either before the mushroom is on or with a smaller brush. 

Amanita muscaria 2

This sculpture was where I wanted to iron out some mistakes I’d made on the last one. The cap/stem proportion is much better, the textures got better, and I added rocks which helped with realism. The spots on the cap became smaller and more random, except for along the brim.