Paper mustache!

Hi everyone!

Today I'm posting something that I did yesterday, finished today but planned ages ago!

Have a look ;)

I love it so much that in the end I'm afraid I will have to glue some acetate (thats what I wanted to say on the video but forgot or didnt thought that would be so similar to Portuguese) piece behind because if I wear it lots the glue will eventually melt from the skin heat...!

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Late sixteenth century paper mache hat VI - FINISHED!

 Hi everyone!

 Yeap, the hat is finished, yey!!!

 

 On my last post everything within the hat was done except painting the sash's pompon, under the brim and varnishing the paper "embroidered" roses.

 After taking care of those, the jewels making was another adventure! 

Plume wise I first thought upon a fluffy sort of geiser surrounded by other coloured ones falling down around it but after trying it was more "better not". This... "geiser" as you can see is a simple sheet of printed paper which was hand cutted as a sort of spaghetti glued unto a piece of wire which, on its edge, has a fake plastic pearl with some balls of toilet paper that were gilded with metalic paint, and some glued plastic "diamonds" .

 Thought on painting the sheet of paper in white but then also thought it would look "cool" if I'd allow the whatever printed text to appear (actually is the monthly balance letter from my bank account, LOL!

  Wondering upon putting a jewel hanging from the geiser's middle, I've created a sort of ring on the middle (which also helps to sustain the overall pompon effect). This ring is a simple strip of cereal cardboard box to which I glued some toilet paper for the rough effect and also some plastic pearls and diamonds.

 For the jewel on the sash I thought upon a brooch and the ones from the Tudor epoch were for sure an inpiration!

  Since a so called "spiritual awakening" 5 years ago, I connect very well with crystals (also do crystal healing therapies by the way) and whenever I want to change something I "ask" and keep a piece of malachite crystal with me (normally works! Try!), so I thought upon representing malachite on the set of the jewels on the hat. Basically the malachite was modeled in toilet paper, covered with air drying modeling paste and then glued on a piece of cereal cardboard box. I wanted to represent a cameo inside but didnt managed... The rest is easy to see, glued plastic diamonds and pearls.:)

  The second piece within the hat jewel is a boat.
 A boat is a symbol of voyage, departure from old things to new things and thus represented in malachite crystal. Had a look upon some authentic late 16th century boat jewels photos and saw that some have the body of the hull made from a big pearl (so often amongst pieces of jewelry at that time!) thus I thought upon representing it with a chunk of expandable foam as in the end it can  resemble mother of pearl (well, almost!) but as the brooch had the malachite and its such a dear crystal to me I went back on my decision.
Again basically the hull is made out of a quarter of a circular shape covered with liquid porcelain and then simply painted black with a randomly applied coat of green, the mast is newspaper roll covered also with the same, the "things" on the edges are cereal cardboard box, the dove is a mix between air drying modeling paste and toilet paper, the sail is cereal cardboard box painted with some pearlish nail polish and... the rest, again, are plastic pearls and diamonds.

  Originally that's how I planned the jewels set but in the middle of the way, as I wrote before, thought upon being extravagant and placing the boat on the middle of the "geiser" plume, but then ended up by doing a sort of hook out of wire and now I can attach/detach both pieces.









 
It was only in the end of the end that I noticed that... the boat's front is pointing back! As the hat was conceived with a specific direction and I cant change nothing I'll just accept that as a sign of something, a sign that I either will "travel"  BACK through history everytime I'll put the hat or it means that soon enough I'll have to do another boat (or something else (a hat pendant jewel set collection to change according my moods! LOL!!))

 Well, voilá!

 I must say that I quite like the finished result (although the construction of the hat itself was a bit too medieval if not pre historic)!
The panache (plume) looks somewhat exotic, easily takes me to those days after the Portuguese discoveries and all was so full of excitment, exotism, splendour, colour ... !

After such adventure I'd really love to hear from you! Please comment, like, share and/or subscribe if you like my works. :)

 Thanks for visiting!

Do you like cakes? Paper mache "pastel de nata"

Hi everyone!

If you ever been in Portugal or Lisbon for sure you know what "pastel de nata" or "pastel de belem" are, right?

If not, allow me to take you on a small history voyage:
In 1820s there was a revolution between liberals and non liberals, liberals won and one of the measure was to abolish religion not only from the state but also from public life. Under that law all the convents and monasteries were closed. In order to survive many monks and nuns sold their ancient recipes of all their famous pasteries.
That was exactly what happend to the hieronymite monks who lived in the now called "Mosteiro dos Jerónimos"  near the Tagus river in Belém, Lisbon. They started to sell these egg tart pasteries in order to survive until they ended up by selling the recipe to a nearby sugar refinery which ended by opening the shop where one can buy them still today!

There are "pastel de belem" but there are also "pastel de nata". Some people think they are both the same but they taste different, the secret within the recipe of the first ones no one knows, but... I honestly prefer pastel de nata (these are sold almost everywhere, even in China!).

As I wasnt sure of the result I didnt took photos of the process but it was extremely simple. Just filled those tin cake "things" with strips of newspaper and glue, added toilet paper roll to make the pastry's edge and for the egg cream I filled it again with toilet paper and glue. For the final touch I covered all with liquid cold porcelain, played around with some pale acrylic browns and yellows and gave a thin coat of varnish on the cream to give some realism to it. Voilá!

Yummmi!!!

Curiously enough when we went out for breakfast today and I took this latest oeuvre to be shown to the patisserie owners (Patisserie/restaurant MOURISCA in S. Pedro de Sintra (by the way)) they liked it so much that asked me some to decorate their front window! Cool!!!

In the meantime I've aploaded the "pastel de nata" to artfinder priced 20€, but if you also have a patisserie that you'd like to decorate (with either these or others cakes), or just like cakes, you can buy directly from me if you prefer, just tell how many and wich size you'd like (this one is around 6cm x 3cm)!

Thanks for visiting!

Paper mache, casts and expandable foam

Hi everyone!

Some days (weeks?) was thinking upon making a bust of myself in order to use as manequin for some things I'd like to try and thought first to make it with plaster gauze strips and then fill it also with the same material plus some layers of paper and more plaster gauze strips hoping that would become stronger.
With time I just remembered that had thought, many many months ago, about some material that I could use as filling, something not that fragile and light at the same time. Used to see my father working on house restorings thought about expandable foam! Wow, such a nice material! and extremely cheap!!!
After a few searchings online expandable foam and I became best friends!

This post isnt about the bust (not yet) but about some casts I started to make from the fruits I've been building up until now (like the apple for example).

Building the fruits, like I wrote before, is extremely interesting because one end up by really having to look at them in order to understand their shapes. Time wise can be consuming and plus I live in a rather humid environment. But the idea would be to be able to construct as many different fruits as possible in order to to make foam cast in order to easily reproduce them as much as possible.

Today we went into what we call "chinese shop" which basically its like a 1£ shop and they have almost anything, all "made in china", all rather cheap (okay, for local economy is shitty but for locals without much much money is ideal (thus their empire here (dont know if other countries in europe have the same))) and to my surprise (or shock) found some plastic fruits that could easily substitute all the work I've been doing, constructing the fruit in paper clay, then covering the halves with plaster gauze strips, filling them with expandable foam and then glue both and finally sand the foam until the shape I want.
Got mixed feelings ... Sad because with 1 euro I could have the fruits I needed for my projects and thus not needing to spend much money on material and "wasting" time until mine are not dried, but also relieved for the same reason! Eitherway, and having started a lemon during the morning, I decided to buy some to complement the ones I have already and maybe, just maybe, I'll end up by doing a foam cast from the plastic fruits.

From left to right: the apple I made, behind a still paper mache clay strawberry, up front a foam cast of an egg with a foam cherry behind, the foam cast of "my" apple and finally the plastic fruits.

 

Thanks for visiting!

Late sixteenth century paper mache hat V

 Hi everyone!

 I'm back and with major advancements on my late 16th century hat!

 If you watched the latest post with a video, you heard me speaking about "stichings" and "embroidery".
The idea was to give a sort of silk embroidered roses as sort of pattern. For that, as I did on the seams, I drew the roses and marked the outline also with "strategic" points in order to pierce the hat's body, ...

   then glued that very same outline and filled the inside (with thin rolls of toilet paper), ...

 and painted all with acrylic colours whilst trying to give a (extremely) rough 3D appearance.

Side view

Side view near the sash

Top view

Overview 

 The creme de la creme was covering the rest of the hat's body with liquid cold porcelain (ie water + white glue + starch) to ease the roughness of the toilet paper and then painting it with two coats greyish blue which matches wonderfully with the (finally) gilded seams and roses outlines). Have a look!

  I'm still wondering if to make a cut between the seams to give the idea that they are two pieces of cloth stitched together and also to varnish the roses, but... once the hat is almost finished, I've also added the "pompon" on the sash, am already designing some jewels and planning the feathers.

 Soon enough all will be finally finish! You will want to see it, right? So follow me either on this blog or through facebook, twitter @ https://www.facebook.com/MachePte

Thanks for visiting! :D

Late sixteenth century paper mache hat IV

News with the late 16th century hat!

                              

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My paper mache Apple

Hi everyone!

Today I'm posting something which I've finished today and... for the first time in my life its a non pretentious sculpture (not that I'm pretentious, I'm just a Leo from July) - an apple!

I made a search online upon similar projects and I saw one in which a real apple was used, covered with paper mache and flour glue, cutted in half, re-assembled and painted. Its alright, right? But not for me, I utterly love the construction process, the seeing and wondering about the object, so I had to start from scratch!

Basically I took a small balloon as armature and then played a bit with volumes through adding strips of cardboard whilst covering it up with my paper clay recipe.
As finishing layer I used liquid cold porcelain, sanded a bit some edges and simply painted with acrylic, voilá!

Enjoy :)

(clic on the picture to enlarge and then clic again and press "view image")

Thanks for visiting :)