Some More Landscaping

 This is the first time I've ever cropped a photo, but you didn't need the window frames or the white plastic table covering! This is more or less how things will be set up, once all the landscaping is in. We "planted" some dead grass, dead bushes and the like, spread some twigs and branches around, and now the next step, hopefully tomorrow, is the slushy path.

Atmosphere Being Added (Before Our Snow Melts!)

 It was well above freezing today, which meant I had to take advantage of the snow still on the ground to help me paint the snow in the diorama.  

This is the centre of the diorama, with chips, bark and sawdust added to the chopping block. The snow in the foreground has been painted a bit, but the area of the sleigh road is still unpainted, as that is my co-creator's task. We hope to get together a couple of days in the new week, to get the landscaping finished and then the lighting can be installed, as well as the last finishing details of the exterior of the diorama.

As you can see, there is still an unpainted area; this will be partly the path, and partly the mess of melted snow and ash, footprints and meltwater, around the fireplace. This is the right side.

And this is the left side. A little dead grass has been placed here and there, as well as bits of moss near the woodpile, and a few dead maple leaves have been placed near the trunks. Next up, I get to make the messy fireplace area.

Landscaping in Place, Now We Paint and Decorate

 The diorama is currently in my work room, for the painting job to begin. Today I worked alone, as Marilyn has a stomach flu, but we hope to get together on Friday, if the flu is gone. The trees are in place, and they have bits of snow in the angles of the branches. The woodpile is also in place, as are two of the sap buckets, with more to come on the other large trees. 

The painting process in a static diorama starts with marrying up the background and the foreground. At this point, the back edges have their first coat of paint, with some faint dry brush accents in the pale mauve found in the background photo. The next step will be to add grey-beige shadows, and try to dry-brush the edge of the foreground to blend into the background. It is far too white right now!

Marilyn built up the ground with foam chunks which she then covered in crumpled paper, using a glue-type product that brushes on. On the right of the photo is a path, which she gets to mess up with "footprints" and sledge tracks. There will be an ashy, melted, sludgy area around the fireplace, and then we get to dirty that with snow, ice and ashes.

Once the background is painted, we can begin to place the larger items, gradually working towards the front of the diorama. I knitted a tiny toque today, which may hang on one of the branches of the small tree on the right side. Now I have to go hide the diorama in our guest room overnight, because if I don't, our cat will move right into our tiny forest clearing....

We Are Working Away

 Due to health problems and bad weather, we haven't been able to get together much to work on the maple sugaring diorama the last ten days or so; however, we are hoping to get back to work on the final diorama Tuesday and Wednesday, to make up for all the lost time.

Winter, old age, back problems - well, what can I say!

OK, That Took Time....

 But the copper kettle is done! As mentioned before, the shape was  moulded over a small preserving jar, using paper clay. Once dry, it was cut to size and sanded, and then faux painted. The bail handle is made of wire, and is not all that visible when the kettle is placed upside-down over a log to drain, as it will be in the diorama. The "rolled" rim is cotton yarn glued around the edges, and the ears are made of card.

I am very pleased with it; the original clay was stone gray, which was then sealed all over to take the paint without softening the cellulose clay. Once dry, I painted it with a couple of coats of raw sienna paint, and when that was dry it was dry-brushed, using a mini fan brush, with a brass-colour metallic rather than a pinkish-copper metallic paint, followed by a brushing and wiping with antiquing gel. And when that was dry, the whole thing was given a coat of satin varnish. The effect is of a copper kettle that has seen a rough life out in the woods, but is still being used, dents and all, as well as being kept quite clean by the maple sugaring crew.

There are a few more small items to come, but so far I'm happy.

A New Camera, and Some Things to Show

 I'm not a woodcarver, but over the weekend I carved a paddle - complete with (cardboard) reinforcement strip on the back, a pair of wedges and an axe for the maple sugaring diorama. I also began work on the large copper kettle which will rest against a stump in the background of the scene, but took the photos with a new-to-me very fancy camera, and my old camera is unable to "read" the pictures I took.

The new camera is a bit of a learning curve, in that it is very slim, apparently has the ability to work with a higher number of pixels, and does not have a port for a cable - apparently, it is WiFi and we have to figure out how to make that work. The photo I took of the freshly-draped paper clay kettle is currently unavailable, but I did take a photo of the dried and trimmed version with my old camera.

The next step is to seal the inside and outside of the dried paper clay shell, and when that is dry I can faux-finish it to look like worn copper. The inside is unlikely to show in the final project, so I'll use that to test my finishes on. I still have to make the "ears" and the bail handle of the kettle, as well as figure out how to make it look like it has a rolled top. (I used a small preserving jar for the shape.)

Weather permitting, Marilyn and I'll be meeting up tomorrow to work on the scenery; I have some items for that to find/put together as well. Hopefully, there'll be some more photos to show you. If and when I can figure out how to download from the new camera, I'll post a photo of the wet clay draped on its form....

...And, We're Back in Business

 Finally, after a busy holiday season and a lot of weather cancellations, as well as health concerns and the like, we're finally back in business on the Maple Sugaring diorama.

The curved background of the diorama has been constructed, and we are working on the actual landscaping of our scene. The major elements are in palace here, and we are about to start the placement of the various trees.The pink foam will be shaped into shallow slopes, to draw the eye of the viewer from the background to the foreground. Marilyn has taken on the landscaping on this project, and we worked together at her house today to begin that process.

There will be a number of large and small trees, to carry the viewer's eyes into the background, and Marilyn is figuring out placements. The size of the trees will decrease the further they are in the diorama, to create a sense of greater depth than there is.

There are still a few small pieces, my part of it, to create, and we hope we can get this project done in a month or so, ready for what may be an early maple sugaring season here, thanks to el nino's contribution to the weird weather. However, a storm system is expected to appear here tomorrow and the next day, so heaven only knows what will happen. 

The display will be on show near the end of March, if everything falls into the schedule we've envisioned for this project. We're going forward again!