Ordered/Purchased Parts for the Carousel

 The storm passed and almost all the ice has melted in the yard, and I ventured out for parts for the carousel.  My first trip was to my local craft shop.  Technically, I do not like this particular craft shop.  It is the size of a large grocery store, and you would think it had a lot of craft items for sale.  However, half the shop is seasonal products, paper goods, and home decor.  I guess that is what it takes to keep a craft shop open these days, but you would think that they would have a large selection of craft products.  Their craft products are minimal, and many items are frequently out of stock.  I was able to find some of what I wanted, but not everything I needed.  But I did manage to find some things, and I am ready to get started.

I have sketched out the deck where the carousel animals will be so I have an idea of where to place the animals and where the bumps that will make the animals go up and down will be placed. The cat is currently braced by a cardboard roll because it has two feet in the air and will not stand on its own.

The carousel will require three thin plywood circles.  The first level will be where the bumps will be placed and the motorized display stand that turns the carousel will be installed.  (I decided that I did not want to get into cutting out gears for this project.) I have ordered a multi-speed revolving display stand that comes with an electric plug and a remote control.  It should be here on Friday.  The display stand will be installed on the first plywood circle and be attached to the second circle.

The second plywood circle will be the deck that the animals are on.  The center will have a cardboard/paper mâché center post that will help support the roof.

The third plywood circle will be part of the roof.  The pinnacle of the roof will be paper mâché.  Which I hope to make look like the big top of a tent with a flag will be painted.  This project is getting more ambitious than anything I had originally planned.

The bumps will be made from a heavy cardboard tube sawn in half to make an arch, then cut into one-inch-wide pieces.  Each tube will have a plastic strip that will form a ramp leading up to the bump so that there will be a smooth transition on the up and down movements.  I may fill the inside of the arch for added support.

What I purchased at the craft store were the balls with holes drilled into them and wooden rods that will be inserted into the balls.  True to form, the ball with the correctly sized hole was sold out.  I had to purchase balls with smaller holes that will have to be drilled to fit.  That is the next step.

I still need to go to the hardware store to purchase the plywood and some brass rods.  The wooden rods will be inserted into the brass rods.  The brass rods will also be part of the supports for the wooden roof. At least I hope it will be brass rods.  It may come down to what they have in stock and how much brass rods cost these days.  

Anyway, the plan is set.  One more trip out for supplies, and I should be ready to put the plan in action.  Many thanks to my husband for his technical support.  I really am not very mechanically inclined and was feeling really intimidated by this part of the project.  I could not move forward until I had a plan for this part of the project.  I needed to know how it was going to move and how wide the holes would have to be that need to be drilled into the animal for the tubes.  Once this part of the project is built, I can get back to what I like best; paper mâché and the clay decorations for the animals.

I am sorry for the late post this week.  Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next post.

More Weather Disruptions - So Experimenting/Playing with Glue and Color for Future Mobile Project

 Severe winter storms have continued to disrupt my work on the carousel.  Although main roads were clear early on, it took twelve days to get to the neighborhood roads.  Days of temperatures in low teens to single digits Fahrenheit have kept the icy roads in place.  Schools started back in person just this past Friday and then had to release early due to another snowstorm.  A windstorm came through with forty mile per hour wind gusts.  The wind chill was below zero.  Some of the ice melted during the day and refroze night after night.  The yard is still mostly covered with snow and ice.

The icy streets and cold winds have discouraged me from going out to the craft store.  Until I do get out, my carousel project is at a standstill.  The good news is that we may have one more day of really cold weather before we return to what would be normal temperatures for this area.  Although I have felt frustrated about not working on the project, I found that what I really needed was a good rest.  Spending days with a book and a warm blanket have restored my sense of peace.  I have had a lot going on, and I had been pushing and pushing trying to get everything done.  I was worn out and running on caffeine and adrenaline. I did not even realize how burned out I was.  I feel much better now and I am looking forward to getting out and about.

In the meantime, I headed back into my studio to play around a little bit.  I had seen some posts on the internet of people making faux stained glass by using glue and food coloring.  I decided to give it a try.

I tried Mod Podge and food coloring for the first few pieces and later changed over to Elmers Multi-Purpose with food coloring for later experiments. (I had a lot more Elmer's than Mod Podge.)  I had a few questions that I hoped to learn.

• How well did the glue mixture look and peel off on different substrates
• How translucent was the piece
• Could you make complex shapes
• How flexible/strong were the pieces once peeled up
• Could you paint a different color over top of the first one 
• Could you scribe through the dots to make see through areas
• How did the dots react if decoupaged onto another piece of paper

Here are some of my findings. 

The large sheet of paper that most of the dots were on is a sheet of freezer paper.  I painted the dots and leaves onto the freezer paper with a paint brush.  The dots peeled up well and were fairly translucent.  The dots also easily peeled off a sheet of clear plastic report cover.  The downside was even though the food coloring and glue were thoroughly mixed, when the glue dried, the food coloring tended to pool in spots, making some areas darker than others.  This is most noticeable on the maple leaf.  The dots peeled off the plastic report cover but were streakier than ones painted on the freezer paper.  I also painted some of the dots on the plastic cover with gesso before painting with the glue.  They looked the worst of all, and the gesso did not peel off the plastic.  As expected, the dots did not peel off poster board, printer paper, or paper towel.

The dots painted on the paper towel were interesting.  I had used a two-ply paper towel.  The paint and glue mostly stayed on just the first layer, and the paper towel tended to crumple up as it dried.  I tried that experiment again with a single ply.  I made sure to paint it down firmly on the freezer paper.  It dried flat and was quite strong.  I feel that it could have a hole punched into it and it would stand up to being hung on a string.  The green color glowed nicely when held near a light but was not translucent enough to be see through.  

When the paper towel was held up to a light, (third photo) each piece glowed nicely, but pooling spots and streaks from the paint brush were visible.  Perhaps a different paint brush might have made a difference, but overall, the pieces were disappointing.

The oak and maple leaves peeled up nicely even though they had some narrow and pointed places.  I was able to paint another color over them without it running one color into another.

The shapes were not as flexible as I would have hoped.  There was some bend to them, but if too much pressure was applied, the piece would snap.  I was hoping that they would be strong enough to punch a hole in them and hang them on a string, and that might work, but the smeary streaky discs were not what I had hoped for as part of a project.

The pink dot near the center of the first picture was used to see if you could make see through areas.  Once the glue set up a little bit, I used the tip of a wooden skewer to carve through the dot.  The dot stayed together even when a spiral was carved into it.

And finally, I wanted to know how well the pieces would work if decoupaged onto another pieces of paper.  That was the big surprise.  In the second photo, you can see that when decoupage medium was used, the blue dots smeared across the page.  None of the other colors ran.  So be forewarned if you should try to use them on a journal page.  I had hoped that the dots would be translucent enough that you could see writing underneath them, but they were too opaque for that.  

I tried one other experiment, but so far that one has not worked out.  I wanted to know if I made a dam of hot glue and made it two layers high, how that would affect a deeper pouring of the glue mixture.  I checked it this morning and it was not a success.  The glue stuck to the hot glue and pulled up the shiny freezer paper.  I tried to push the dot off the paper, but after seventeen hours, the glue had not set up all the way.  I ended up just gushing sticky glue over my fingers.  I am leaving the other one until tomorrow, and I will try again to see if a thicker dot would look better than the thin ones.

All in all, I do not think the glue shapes would work on a project that I hope to make in the future.  I want to make a mobile of lightweight leaves that would swirl around in a breeze or when the air conditioner or heater turned on.  I had made a mobile with leaves made from air dry clay and painted with an air brush.  It looks okay, but the clay leaves are so heavy that air from the ac/heat is not strong enough to move it.  It only spins if you give it a push.  I am hoping to make a better one that will spin and sway easily one of these days.  I just have to find the right medium.

Anyway, it was a fun day or two of playing with glue and color just to see what they would do.  Soon I will be out to get the pieces I need to get on with the next stage of the carousel.

Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next post.

Winter Storm Disrupts my Plans

Our area has had a massive winter storm.  This storm started as snow, changed to hours of sleet, then hours of freezing rain.  Then the temperature dropped and everything froze solid.  We had between half to three-quarters of an inch of ice on everything.  The first couple of days after the storm, the sun would come out, and the temperature would come up to just a few degrees above freezing.  That caused some surface melting, which froze again as soon as the sun went down.  Everything turned to slick ice.  Then we settled in with days that temperatures never rose above freezing.  Our neighborhood looks like one big glacier.

I took this picture of the backyard this morning.  The yard is a solid sheet of ice.

The snowplows have been having a difficult time trying to clear the streets. Although the main streets are now clear, most neighborhood streets have not been plowed.  It is slick going on those roads.  My husband and I have been out only once to pick up some groceries and take some supplies to my mother.  A second storm was predicted to come through, but it stayed south of us.  Another storm is predicted for later this week.  

I was at the point of making a trip out to look for the items I needed to make the track for the carousel.  Due to the bad weather, the shopping trip has been postponed until there has been some significant ice melt.  Not all shopping center parking lots have been cleared.  It is not worth risking a slip and fall over some craft items.  I have not wanted to place an order online, because I was concerned that the ice could cause a delivery person to slip and fall.  I saw two of my neighbors have multiple slips and falls trying to traverse the frozen ice to bring in groceries.

Anyway, it has been good to take a break.  During this freezing weather mostly what I have wanted to do was drink something warm and curl up with a blanket and a good book.  The weather will clear sooner or later, and I will be back to working on the project.  

Planning the Carousel Base - Part 26 of the Project

 I am publishing the blog a day early due to weather conditions.  A major winter storm is moving through the area, and declarations have gone out stating that people should be prepared for multi-day power outages.  Like many people, I have spent a fair amount of time preparing for the storm. I wanted to get something on the blog early just in case.

The photo shows four animals on one row and two animals in the middle.  The animals are on temporary braces for the picture.  Most of the animals do not have four feet on the ground, and do not stand on their own.  The outer circle is twenty inches in diameter.

I had underestimated just how big the base of the carousel would have to be to accommodate the track system as well as the space needed for each animal.  The animals are an inch or more wide and five inches long.  They needed to be set back further back from the edge of the base than I had thought they would be.  

As I mentioned in the previous post, I was having trouble visualizing how the carousel would look while trying to draft it on graph paper.  I was not able to make sense of what I was seeing on the paper.  Now that I have drawn out some circles on a piece of poster board and placed the animals on it, I realize that my draft was not that far off.  What I had thought would be the base was not nearly large enough.

I had originally envisioned two rows of animals with three in each row.  However, to make the carousel large enough to do that and accommodate all the track, the base was going to be so large that I would not have a place to display the carousel anywhere except right in the middle of the living room rug.  So, time to fall back and punt.  

One of the possible ways I thought of was to reduce the size of the base and have four animals; two horses, the goat, and the tiger on the front row, and the second row containing the cat and rabbit that would chase each other around the inner track.  That could possibly work if I reduced the size of the inner pillar that will support the roof.  It seems that the central pillar would look disproportionate to the roof that way.  Also, the shorter area of track between the animals would lead to smaller distances between the bumps in the base that would make the animals move up and down.  I could probably make that work, but I expect that it would make the animals appear to be jumping up and down frantically because they were so close together.  I would prefer to have a longer space between the animals so that the rise and fall of the animals is a little more sedate.

Another plan that I have considered is to use just four animals and make the other animals into freestanding projects.  This would be quite workable.  There would be enough room between the animals for the bumps to have a gradual lift of the animals.  This is a strong contender for the new plan.  

The third possibility I came up with is to make two more horses.  Then I would have enough animals to make two carousels, one with horses and one with animals.  The horses were the easiest to make of all the animals because they did not have anything added other than their manes and tails.  They did not need the time investment of putting on all the fur.  I had not really considered making two carousels, but that might be the way to go.  (Not that I have any room for displaying two carousels.)  

Anyway, I am still considering my options.  At this moment I am strongly considering making two more horses in the future to have enough for a second carousel.  My main inspiration for starting this project was seeing a hand carved Denzel carousel that had many different animals on it.  So, if I start with the four animals that are already made, I will at least get the first carousel started.  I will at least work out all the logistics of how the animals will go up and down on the first carousel.  If I get everything worked out easily, then a second carousel's animals are already halfway done.  If the project turns into too much of a nightmare, then the horses can be freestanding projects.

I guess this is the lesson everyone should learn about making art.  The artist might start out with a vision but may have to change his or her plan as the creation unfolds.  Artistic ideas have to develop as the circumstances dictate.  Another art lesson is simplification; less is more.  If you try to put too much detail in too small a space, it creates stress and distractions that take away from the piece.  If the concept of the piece is too grand, it is best to let go of part of the vision and go with what works best visually.

There will not be another post this week even if we do not lose power in the storm.  Look for the next post the first Monday or Tuesday in February.

Planning the Carousel Mechanics - Carousel Part 25

 I have completed the first phase of the carousel project by getting all the animals to the point where they are ready for sanding and adding the decorations.  Before I go any further, I want to do some work on how the mechanics are going to work.  (It was cold and we have been having rain and snow, so I was not inclined to go outside to do some sanding.) I have the basic idea but need some insight into just how the animals will be mounted on the poles, how much distance between the animals, how much space I will need for the track they will be running on and how large the base of the carousel needed to be. So, my task this week was to start working on that part of the project.

Long story short, I wasted most of this week trying to draft it out on graph paper.  Let's just say that drafting is not my strong suit.  The difficulty was that I have oblong animal shapes that I was trying to represent going around a circular track.  I worked on the first sheet until I had so many erasures on it that I could not keep track of what I was supposed to be looking at and what was erased.  The same thing happened with the second sheet.  Clearly, I needed a different way to figure this out.  

I decided that it might be easier for me to comprehend it if I was working on a circle that was the anticipated size of the base of the carousel.  To that end, I decided that I would create a paper circle the anticipated the base to be and place the animals on it so I could have a real idea of what I needed.  To that end, I pulled out a tool that I have not used in a long time: a huge compass.

My husband made this compass for me years ago for another project.  I was painting Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs.  In case you are not familiar with them, these were large signs generally painted on barns around three hundred years ago.  Most of the signs were for protection and luck.  Other symbols were for health, love, and friendship.  Over time, the signs moved from barns to smaller round designs that were displayed over doorways or in the kitchen.  The signs were also painted on wooden chests that were given for blanket and clothing storage as wedding gifts.

Anyway, as you can see from the photo, there is a large difference in size between the standard size compass and the wooden compass.  The wooden pieces in the center has a nut and bolt.  You loosen the bolt to expand the compass and tighten it to hold it in place.  I think it actually does a better job of keeping its place and not slipping compared to the mechanics of a regular compass.  

This week I will get started on the circle and working on the placement of the animals and the pieces that will make the animals go up and down.

Check back next Monday for Tuesday for the latest update.

Paper Mâché Carousel Animals - Rabbit Completed - Part 24

This week I completed adding the second coat of cotton "fur" to the rabbit.  It may not sound like a lot, but every little set moves the project forward.  This part of the project is rather time consuming.  I think all total it took about four hours of work to completely cover the rabbit twice.  

Just to recap for new readers: The animals were created from cardstock and cardboard then covered with paper mâché.  Some of the animals are covered in fur or shaggy hair.  You can scroll back to see that process or look at it at the blog URL:  folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

The rabbit was covered with cotton adhered to the form by using a stiff artist oil paint brush and a fifth-fifty mix of all-purpose glue and water.  Cotton has a grain to it.  Apply the glue in the direction of the grain and the cotton will go on smoothly.  If you try brushing the glue on against the grain the cotton will bunch and lump.

Anyway, I have reached a major milestone.  The first phase of this project has been completed. Each animal was constructed starting from a flat sheet of cardstock and have been turned into a three-dimensional animal.  I have been working on making the animals since March 2025.  

Since this is only a hobby, I can have time to work on it for a couple of hours a week; and only at times when I have a full hour or more to work on it at a time.  Paper mâché has a fair amount of setup and cleanup time as well as direct work time.  I am thinking it has to have a minimum of a hundred hours on this project already.  That estimate is probably low.  I don't keep a log of actual time because there is little point in it.  If I were to charge minimum wage for the hours spent, most people would consider the piece out of their price range.  I just make things because I enjoy doing it.  The projects are for relaxation.  I need some downtime away from the usual chores and responsibilities that take up most of my time.

The next stage of the project requires a trip to craft and hardware stores to get the parts that will be used to make the horses go up and down as well as around the track.  The reason I need to have those parts now is because I will have to drill through the animals I have created to put the posts through them.  I did not want to leave a hole in the animals while making them because it would have made the construction more difficult.  The early stages of the project were not very stable, and I needed to make sure that the pole would stay upright.  If the pole slanted it would have prevented it from moving up and down or could damage the animal from the stress.  Once I get the rods, tubes, and other parts needed, then I can drill the holes for them all at once.  The areas will need to be sealed with more paper mâché before I go any further.  I need to do this now so that the hole for the rods will not be in the way of the decorations for the animals.  

Hopefully I will be able to get out to the stores sometime this week.  Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next post.

Paper Mâché Carousel Animals - Tiger and Rabbit -Part 23

I have made some slow progress on this project this week.  The holidays have kept me busy, and I only had a small amount of time to work on the animals.  Now that the New Year has arrived, I am looking forward to having a few more hours in the studio (also known as my spare bedroom).  It is not a fancy set up, but it gives me a place that I can work without having to pick up and put away everything at the end of each session.

The tiger finally has his tail attached.  It has an unfortunate bulge in the middle, but it is not enough to want to make me want to rip it out and do it over again.  There is a color difference between the body and the tail, but that will not make any difference once it has layers of gesso and paint on it.  The difference is due to my having tried one cotton clay recipe for the body and another for the tail.  

It is hard to see in this photo, but the tail has some texture on it to try to make it look similar to the body. It is not as bulky as the body fur, but I did not want as much bulk in the tail.  Once it is painted, the tail texture will be more apparent.

I have completed the first coat of cotton fur on the rabbit.  It still needs another coat of the cotton fur.  I just have not had time to sit down and get to it.

I wanted the fur to be smoother on the rabbit than it was on the tiger.  I used a different clay for this animal.  It was much easier to apply than the clay that I used for the tiger.  Basically, the fur is just cotton that is brushed onto the paper mâché with a fifty-fifty mixture of water and Elmer's Multi-Purpose glue.  

I will say that this mixture was much easier to work with than the other clay recipe.  It will give a smoother coat.  The clay recipe I used on the tiger allowed for a heavier, more textured surface.  (Scroll back to previous posts on the tiger for that recipe.  If you cannot reach it from here the blog URL is folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com).

By the end of the week, I should have reached a milestone on the project; all the animals will have reached the first stage of their creation.  I had hoped to finish it by the end of the year, so I am not so far off the goal, considering that every once in a while, life had decided to give me a good shake and leave me dealing with unexpected situations.  

Check back next week on Monday or Tuesday for the next post.