It took quite a few days, but I managed to make a passing lantana plant; it began with squashing styrofoam balls to make my own floral foam, progressed to paint-mixing that foam, then when it was dry, carefully chopping it into tiny, tiny bits with a tissue blade. I am happy with the results, which involved a fair bit of additional painting.
The other time-consuming item is a yucca tree; my deserted desert garden needed some height, as most of the plants made for it so far are quite low. The yucca will fill that need quite nicely. The tutorial is available on-line, if you google "miniature yucca trees", and is in YouTube format.
The yucca tree is about 10 cm tall, made of paper on a wire armature, with rings of floral wire (which I had in brown) for the knotholes. I am very pleased with this little tree. The last cluster of leaves still needs to be bent into shape, as you can see; I just finished dry-brushing in the join of the leaf cluster to the stem.
The instructor sells kits to make these flowers, but I kind of made up my own kit in order to get closer to finishing this little garden.
She uses a circular array of yucca leaves, but I used strips of white copy paper left over from some other project. Five colours of felt-tip pen were used, two of the pens were alcohol-based artists inks, but the other three were inexpensive Crayola water-based markers. You can see the results above. This technique of blending markers is kind of intriguing, and I may explore it further.
I am coming up in a few days to my second cataract surgery, so the next week may be rather quiet here on the blog. However, I will be back, as next up I have to design the actual little garden base; there are a number of possibilities for the materials, likely a combination of card, builder's foam and paint will be the best way to go. There will be old fence posts, and perhaps miniature barbed wire, but I need both
eyes working to be able to do that!
Wow! Amazing group of tree and flowers! I have so much fun trying to figure out materials to emulate real life things. You seem to be a true master at it! Best of luck with the second surgery, heal fast and get back to creating!
ReplyDeleteI think coming up with your materials has got to be a necessity for most miniaturists living where I do; the only "hobby shop" we have is a small Michaels, and they don't even carry scrapbooking punches any more....Thanks for your comment, Jodi.
DeleteOh Marijke I m in love with that lantana. What a beautiful job - as usual of course. All of the pieces look great and so realistic!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to getting together gain once you recover from your 2nd eye surgery!- Marilyn D.
It took a long time, as I had to figure out what I had in my stash that I could use for the flower foam base; I need more brittle bits of styrofoam, as I'd like to try Queen Anne's Lace....
DeleteHello Marijke, I love your Lantana's they look really good. The Yuca has come out good too. did you use felt tips to colour the leaves of the yuca or paint on a brush?
ReplyDeleteHuibrecht
I used 3 water-based felt tips, and 2 alcohol-based artist's markers; orange, yellow and olive green water-based, and darker olive and garnet alcohol ones. The three were cheap Crayola markers, and the garnet was a Copic sketch marker, while the darker olive was Spectrum noir. The latter two were purchased at an art store. I really do like the way the colours blend.
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