Thursday, August 4, 2016

My 2016 TBAI Gallery Piece

Time is getting short and the Teddy Bear Artist Invitational Show is just around the corner. The theme for this year’s show is Critters Galore . . . Bears and More. Today I am delighted to share my TBAI gallery piece I call “The Hideout”. With the theme in mind, please meet Robbie (the raccoon), Barney (the bear) and Freddy (the fox) in their hideout in the forest.

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These three meet here frequently for fun and friendship. It is a place deep in the woods that they have made their own. The slate pathway to their secret hideaway is known only to them.

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There you will see their homemade table is very forest friendly made from a slice of a fallen tree and their perches are rocks found here and there.

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This time their moms baked some homemade goodies for their adventures in the woods: a red velvet cake and some cupcakes – one for each of them. (My daughter Claire made them! Yum!)  These three keep their own special mugs for the ‘magical’ glowing tea in the hideout. Can you guess whose is whose?

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One of their favorite things to do is to roast marshmallows for S’mores. They are very careful about their campfire and keep a sharp eye on the flickering coals and the marshmallows. Everyone except Robbie. He let his marshmallow get a little too close! That’s okay though. They have some spares.

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When it gets dark, they have jar lights hanging overhead so they can stay late or sleep over if they want.

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These little friends simply enjoy each other’s company and if there happen to be some delicious treats too, all the better. Welcome to “The Hideout”.

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I hope you enjoyed your visit to The Hideout!  Thanks for coming!

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Monday, August 1, 2016

Campfire – WIP TBAI Gallery Piece

One of the features of this piece is a campfire. In fact, you might even say, without a campfire, the fun factor would be dramatically diminished. With that in mind, I did some research because I wasn’t sure how one goes about building a small campfire that doesn’t look totally ridiculous.

Do you see the sort of white, sort of round, flat object on the right edge of this photo?

That is where I began. Actually, the beginning was creating that round object but I lost some of the photos from my camera not 15 minutes ago, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say the mold for this thing was a piece of aluminum foil and the substance I used was a silicon gel.

In order for it to look as much like a campfire as I could possibly make it, I thought it needed to glow and flicker. And in order to glow and flicker, light needed to pass through the ‘coals’ (i.e. the silicon circle). The silicon would provide this opportunity so the lights could glow but not-too-bright.  I wasn’t totally convinced my idea would work, but I had no back-up plan so I had to go with it.

I removed some of the moss in the area I wanted to place the campfire and, with Jay’s help; we wired three flickering lights in three colors: red, orange and yellow. I covered the lights with the silicon circle, added some flakes to give the impression of coals, and shortly after, glued everything in place.

Here’s a quick clip of the glowing embers:

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Afterwards, all that was left to do was to set the rock/stone border in place – we wouldn’t want the fire to get out of hand! – And make some tiny logs to add to the top.

As always, thanks for reading!

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