a journal of my creative obsessions and my ever elusive artistic muse

11.30.2014

10 more miniatures!!

Here are ten more miniatures for my 30 miniatures in 30 days leading up to my 30th birthday!
Hope you enjoy them!



5 types of cutting boards

Size reference


Cinnamon Rolls




Palmiers

Religeuse




Buttery Croissants


Almond Croissants

11.20.2014

10 down 20 more to go...




Hey everyone! It has been 10 days and I have 10 miniatures finished, YAY! I had a bunch of chrysnbon kits that I had purchased from Oakridge Hobbies (they were the best priced that I found in the US although they have a tendency to be back ordered a bunch). I also recently purchased some do-it-yourself book kits from Angelika's Minis on Etsy.  I don't have a whole lot of experience with miniature kits and figured I would give them a whirl. Hope you like them as much as I loved making them!

For this and all of the other plastic Chrysnbon kits I cannot stress enough the importance of trimming and scraping off the excess plastic. Unfortunately there are a lot of fake looking seam line from the molding process but I couldn't really complain since I think I spent maybe $6 at the most on each kit with the exception of the stove which I believe was around $12. I used fine 400, 600, and 1000 grit sand paper to try and remedy this. Also getting a putty filling compound especially for polystyrene is recommended, I didn't have any on hand and used an epoxy putty I had but it barely worked. It did not adhere well at all to the polystyrene but luckily filled in some of the little gaps.


To try and make the texture that cast iron has instead of using a flat black spray paint or just aging the already black plastic I decided to use a fine textured black spray paint. I really like how it turned out. One thing I did not like about the stove kit was how fake the plated metal application is for this kit. I used a flat black spray paint on this and used Amaco rub and buff spanish copper, pewter, and silver leaf for some of the metal detail work. I buffed it out and it was a little to shiny for my taste I wanted the stove to be slightly antiqued and worn, so I used an acrylic wash with lamp black and let it sit a minute before wiping it off so it would get into the crevices. I also did this with the edges of the shelves and everywhere I used Amaco rub and buff.

Chrysnbon Stove Completed

*Some things I would have done differently would have been to not spray paint the glue edges of the individual pieces. I had a heck of a time getting some of the pieces to glue properly and had to re-scrape these edges with an exacto knife and etch them a little bit to get the polystyrene testers glue to adhere, and even then there are places on it that the bond isn't stiff enough. Another thing I would have done differently is to glue the legs and the base board where the legs peg into together at the same time instead of separately. I had to break off all of the legs to get them to line up together.

Before aging right, after aging left

Completed Chairs

The chairs turned out better than I had hoped. Working with plastic definitely had its difficult moments, I struggled painting the grey chairs with regular acrylic washes and in the end gave up because the acrylic would not adhere properly. I started over by washing the chairs with soapy water. I then spray painted them with a grey spray paint specifically for plastic and then aged them with a light grey acrylic wash and a dark brown acrylic wash because it was a little too cold otherwise.





Close up of modifications

I separated the bathing kit into two groups and spray painted the pitcher, bowl, and "chamber pot" a vanilla and used a gloss varnish to make it look more like ceramic. I spray painted the straight razor soap dish, frothing mug, and shaving bristle brush with a flat black spray paint and then used the gloss varnish to enhance them. I used the Amaco rub 'n' buff on the straight razor and aged it a little bit with a black acrylic wash. It is a little hard to tell in the pictures but I modified the frothing cup to have a brush rest on it like most did in the late eighteen hundreds by melting extra polystyrene and gluing it on before painting. I also wanted a more realistic shaving brush so I cut off the fake plastic bristles and added real bristles instead.

I was impressed by how good of quality the printies I bought from Angelika's Minis were. They were only $3.50 + shipping each and I love how they turned out. I did do some modifications to the pages before I started putting it all together. I used an archival flat varnish and sprayed all of the pages before I started cutting and assembling to add strength and protect the ink from being handled. I also used an archival bookbinding glue and used clamps and pieces of wood to make a makeshift mini book press to make sure all the pages were tight and glued well. I strengthened the covers by adding some thin card stock before gluing in the pages, I also added some silk book ends I made to make them a little more detailed and elegant.



Close up of silk book ending added


Size reference


11.10.2014

30 things in 30 days!

I am gearing up to focus on my true love and passion, miniature and doll making. I have spent the last week organizing and overhauling my studio space and have finally invested in some of the materials and supplies I have been needing. I am extremely excited and I am challenging myself to make 30 things in 30 days to celebrate my 30th birthday, and to finally get my little miniature business up and rolling again.

I unfortunately have had to take a lot of time off from creating due to some family issues over the past year, mainly the loss of my beautiful grandmother. It has become my mission to spend as much time as possible in creating my little dream and in doing so, honor her memory. Although she always wanted me to do something a little more concrete as a profession, during the last part of her life she really supported me in my decision to pursue my passion, even though it is a little on the unusual side.  I hope to be able to make her proud by succeeding in my goals and hopefully next year being accepted into the International Guild of Miniature Artists. She was an amazing woman who lived an amazing life and if I learned anything from her it is that life is too short to not do what you love and to never compromise!

 I'm sorry for being away so long but am hoping to make some people smile with the miniatures I am about to make! Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is having a wonderful end of fall and having a magical day!

11.01.2014

A Cleaning Kind of Day

So today, being the first of the month, I wanted to finish up all of the projects that I have been working on out with the old and in with the new.  I woke up this morning thinking about all of the stuff I was going to create today and then walked into this...




I am pretty positive that there might have been some sort of earthquake or evil messy gremlin thing that happened into my studio last night after I went to bed, because I know I didn't leave it like this.... Sigh I guess its a cleaning kind of day... yuck