Pay Pee Yay Mash Shay


It was a larger-than-smaller task done today. I used various metal meshes, including aluminum rain gutter guard (which sculpts softly, holds beautifully and is cheaper than art form mesh.) to add thickness to the tree's trunk. I used foam pipe insulation as a base shape for roots. I molded the shape of the tree and its roots over the two wall panels that emerge from either side of the tree to blur the line between the tree and the cottage. That's the "half" part of making Halfland. Things are neither entirely one thing or the other. It is a tree/house.

I started in on covering this new construction with papier maché toward the end of the day. I ended up sitting in the middle of the cottage surrounded by torn scraps of brown kraft paper and a tray of pure liquid starch, shaping the strips onto the forms as the sun set. It was hard to get in and out of there, once in, so I just kept pasting, even as the dusk light grew dim and my radio batteries ran out. Me, in the dark, in the silence, in Halfland.

Bonus Art Today: Some sweet friends were pleased enough with receiving one of the Christmas card puppets this year that they gifted "Hims" and me with a really wonderful wooden puppet, who now lives happily in our paper craft werkshop. Our thanks to them for it is a hand-watercolored, paper, working replica of the toy. It was my first time adding a string mechanism to a puppet's long limbs so that they flail up when its leads are pulled! A very fun thing to make!

Comments

  1. WoW, this is some amazing progress!!! and the Tree/House is absolutely wonderful. I love all the material Solutions you came up with.
    I can't wait for your next post about the cottage (with more pictures, please :)

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  2. Go Shelley! The tree/house looks great, and thanks for the tip about cheapy gutter-spout-guard as opposed to artsy mesh :D

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  3. Anonymous11:53 AM

    Great as always, I think you can always Guess what i'm going to Say...I love it, great solutions and everything!

    -Ben

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  4. Thank you for all the support everyone!!! You guys are the best, each and every one.

    I wouldn't say the tree/house looks pretty right now, ah, but I think that it will when it's finished and dressed and just part of the film's atmosphere/background.

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  5. The tree house indeed looks great! It looks like a ton of progress was made.

    keep updating.

    jriggity

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  6. Thank you, Justin, I will indeed!

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