Goblin Halloween Diorama - Part 28

Ravens disappeared against dark branches.

If anyone saw a blank version of this post a few minutes ago, my apologies.  I accidentally hit a key and it published the post.  I'm not even sure what key I hit.  Anyway, on with today's post. 

I finished making and painting more ravens to add to the trees.  I glued them to the tree branches with hot glue.  It was not that hard to get the ravens on the trees, but when I finished, I was in for a big disappointment.  The birds vanished from sight amid the dark branches.  I was considering whether I should try to repaint the trees lighter, but I finally considered that done is done and time to move on. 

Ravens reappeared when contrasting leaves were added.

My next move was to start adding some leaves to the trees.  I did not want to have the trees completely bare.  I thought that having a few leaves here and there would add some color to the diorama.  I used silk leaves that I purchased at the craft store.  Of course, as purchased, the leaves are too large.  I had to cut them down into little pieces.  Most of the leaves on the stem that I purchased are a golden brown.  Other leaves were white with just a tinge of brown.  I decided that I needed a little more color in the leaves, so I started by painting the white leaves with various colors of craft paint.  I just used an old paint brush to dot orange, yellow, green, and tan all over the leaves.  Since the leaves are being cut down to smaller pieces, they don't look like dots of paint anymore.  They just have various bits of color on them.

The leave purchased from the craft store have a piece of plastic glued to them to create the vein for the leaf.  I pulled the vein off the leaves before painting them.  Then I used pieces of the vein to create the branch for the leaves.  I hot glued the small bits of leaf back onto the plastic with hot glue.  These are not individual leaves.  I cut strips of the silk leaf and then made random cuts in the strip so that it looks like a group of leaves once it is glued to the stem.  The cuts were only made to suggest a leaf shape.  Even with that adaptation, it still took a long time to put the leaves on the branches and glue the branches to the trees.  I have not yet finished putting leaves on the first tree.  I will be working on that more today and tomorrow.  It was a messy process.  Working with hot glue leaves little strands of glue everywhere.   It actually got to be a bit annoying.  When I find I am getting aggravated with a process, it is time to back off for a while and return to it when I feel more comfortable.

Adding leaves to the trees had a surprising effect.  Once the leaves were on the trees, the pops of color drew the eye to the branches where before the eye tended to just register them as dark branches.  The color also offered some contrast to the black ravens.  They became more visible.  So I am starting to see the ravens in the tree again.  With some more strategically placed leaves and branches, I think that the tree will appear to have a large flock of birds in it again, which was my intention.

All of this takes time.  My diorama will not be complete by Halloween, but should be finished shortly afterwards.  Rebuilding the lower floor of my home after the plumbing disaster took so much time away from my art making time this year.  Also, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I was also working on a competition piece  from August until October.  That also took a lot of crafting hours.  So this piece is not going to be completed by Halloween.  I suppose I could stay up for two or three days straight and get it finished, but it would not look nearly as good and is overall counterproductive to a healthy lifestyle.  So it will be finished when it gets finished.  Perhaps it will take center stage in my Halloween decorations next year.

Check back Sunday for the next blog post.