Monday 6 November 2017

I do like a bush!...

Having a few moments in between jobs on the Vincent while bits dried, I came across my stock of rubberised horse hair and other scenic essentials.  So I cut a small piece of it and shaped it up to fit the inside corner of the chimney on the Lengthan's hut.  I'd painted the chimney (made of Foamex) last night and turned a brass chimney pot for it.  Today I painted some green staining where the bush will be and put in some cracks with a knife point.
I then painted the horsehair with gouache paint green so there was a slight tinge of green with the brown of the horse hair.
Glued on the model with Evo-Stik which is perfect for this kind of irregular material.

I'd decanted some used tea bag innards a few weeks ago and left to dry on the top of the gas boiler in little plastic pill pots. Today I had a look and they've all dried beautifully, so I tipped them out and found some as fine, some as less so and some clumped together like flower heads, so I masked the body of the hut with cut paper, sprayed with Harmony hair spray and sprinkled with the tea.  Driven on by my success I did much the same with the short length of shrubbery along a natural line on the lockside.  I find that the essence is to carefully shape the stuff with sharp scissors and use plenty of separate pieces, not one long line.  Also, allow some tealeaves to fall onto a darker painted sward beneath and just outboard of the hedge where muck and bullets lie.  Here's the result.
More weathering needed on the stucco of the chimney stack yet, but generally I'm happy with this. I may now add more colour if the hair spray is set, especially to the hedgerow.


5 comments:

  1. Dried tea leaves. Very Blue Peter. Some times old techniques (Zip texturing?) still have a place. Do you dye the tea leaves?

    I'm sure I've read somewhere of dried herbs being used for scenic purposes. I might have to raid the kitchen cupboard.

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  2. No James, I have no idea how to dye such tiny stuff. Chris has yet to dye me some lint and fluffy packaging. You know me, I don't buy what I can get for nowt and tea leaves were good enough for George Stokes.

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  3. Lots of enjoyable reading there Martin. I hadnt tuned in for the three most recent epistles. Pictures of the railway buildings are really nice. Might drop in to the cafe for a tea sometime.

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  4. Oh and what is evostick exactly?

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  5. Thanks John. Evo-Stik s an old favourite English contact (Impact?) adhesive. I use it for almost everything except foam, which it melts, so for that I use UHU Por. In each case slap a bit on each surface, smoothed with a finger, let it tack up and then slam 'em together. A truly sticky glue, unlike PVA and all those. See you in the caff!

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