Daily Dish #1 Cheeseburger and Fries

I have 2 cameras and a smart phone and these are the best pictures I could come up with! 

Should be interesting to look back in a year from now and see how much I can improve not only my clay skills but my photography skills too.

Have a great day Every-one :)

Happy Halloween!!!!

This is not a miniature but it's the most "Halloween-ish" project I've made this year so I thought I'd share it.

A few weeks ago my friend showed me picture of a mask she thought would be perfect for a music festival she would be going to. It occurred to me that I had everything needed to make one for her, so I did.

I started with a store bought paper mache mask. Yes I did just happen to have one, two actually.

 Drilled a couple of holes for the elastic, doing it before painting prevents chipped paint.

 Black, white and a selection of fluro paints. The white pencils are meant for use on blackboards.

 This was my big mistake. I painted the whole mask black, I should have started by painting it white. You'll see why soon.

 Sketched on the beginnings of the pattern with the white charcoal pencil.

Then realised that I couldn't just paint flouro onto black and expect it to show.

Let's just put it down to a bimbo moment and move on.

 So at this point I had to paint a white base to each of the areas I wanted to be coloured.

3 coats of white and 5 coats of colour. If only I had started with a white base, grrr!!

I went out and bought the blue and purple paints because I didn't think it was going to be colourful enough without them. Bonus- now I have a full set of fluro paints.

I must have gotten all wrapped up in the project because this is the last in progress photo I have, the rest are the completed mask, sealed with several coats of clear gloss.

 If my "model" looks a bit odd it's because it my anatomical dummy.

He's a permanent feature by the front door. Every day is Halloween to me :)

 Under a black light.

 All of the white paint disappeared :( unfortunately I didn't have access to a black light until after all the painting was done.  This is why it would have been better to start with a white base and fill in the black bits. Never mind it turned out ok and my friend liked it.

  

 Happy Halloween every-one.

A kitchen update.

Working on the little kitchen yesterday was a real headache, literally. All the paints, stains and glues giving off fumes gave me quite a headache. 

I gave the cupboard doors and spice rack a coat of stain/varnish.

Cut out a counter top to fill in the empty corner and glued it together.

 Then using mod podge covered all 3 counter tops with paper from my scrap booking stash. 

Turning the timber tops into granite.

 I painted the inside of the oven black,

and the doors silver. 

 I might do the fridge doors in the silver too one day but for now it can stay red.

So this is where I am right now. I'm not going to glue anything down just yet. I think it's best to take a few photos first and see how it all works as a back drop. After all that's why it was built.

I'll play with it a little more today but I really need to start making some food.

Tomorrow I serve my first daily dish. :)

Setting myself a challenge.

I don't know why but I have had a lot of trouble getting things done on the Orchid. Every time I get it out I end up staring at it for ages but not getting much at all done. I know what I want it to look like, I have everything I need to get it done but I can't seem to get my butt into gear and do it. So time to walk away, at least for now. Try something a little different.

Rather than start another full size project I needed to come up with something else, something  To get me into my craft area creating daily. Then it hit me! A way to challenge myself on a daily basis, to have a new finished product every day. I'm going to make a different meal every day for a year!

The "dish a day" challenge starts on Saturday. It's New Year's Day in the Pagan calender, as good a day as any to get started. That gives me a couple of days to create a scene to photograph the finished pieces in. I have promised myself that even if the scene isn't completely done, the food will be served daily as of Saturday.

All of this hit me yesterday and This is what I've done so far....

 I dug out some kitchen furniture and started playing on the coffee table to see how it would look best. I really liked this arrangement but realised that it would't fit into the space I want to store it in. I have 3 other cube shelf thingys, like the one in the background here, in my craft area.  

 So I settled for this arrangement and started measuring out on the foam core, I chose foam core because it's light but fairly strong and because it's easy to cut, I don't have a lot of tools. (Walking Dead marathon on the tv. Minis and monsters, such a great combination for me.)

 I cut out 2 panels for each of the walls and the floor and glued them together using pva glue.

 One wall is slightly longer than the other so that I didn't end up with a gap in the corner. The measurements are: floor - 31x31cm.  wall 1- 22x31cm.  wall 2- 22x32cm. The foam core is 5mm thick.

 Lots of glue and lots of tape to hold it all together. Of course it was at the very beginning of this process that my dog, Piper, decided she really needed me to go outside and play with her. So while I am single handedly trying to fit it all together, keep it all square and hold it all together with bits of tape this is what I can see out of the corner of my eye......

 "I'll just keep staring at Mum until she can't take it any more. Any minute now she'll give in and take me outside and throw the ball for me. I call the technique Passive Nagging. It's very effective"

After the glue dried and the game of fetch was over I cut one more piece of foam core for the base for a bit of extra strength. (no I didn't use the scissors for this, they just happened to be there)

I want terracotta tiles so I chose a piece of card stock as close to the base colour as I could find in my stash and placed it in for a look.

 Hmmm???..

 Yep I think that will do it. 

I picked out a selection of browns, creams and gold. I also used acrylic medium to give a bit of texture to the finish.

 I used a stiff brush to dab all of the colours onto the card. I didn't use the word stipple because I tried a stippling brush last time I did this and it didn't work at all well. I found it better to use and old "shaggy" brush with stiff bristles. Did that make sense?

 Once the paint was dry I turned the sheet over and marked out 1" squares on the 

back and cut them out.

 Do they look like terracotta? 

 I used some strips of egg carton to cover the raw edges and covered the back with grey card. Even though I know this bit will never show in photos, a job worth doing etc..

All glued into place. At this stage I thought once the glue has dried I'll give it a couple of coats of mod podge and call it a night. Feeling quite pleased at the amount I had done. 

A glance at the clock....  3.30am!! The rest can wait till tomorrow, time to get some sleep.

Time flies when you're having fun. Think I got my mojo back. :)