Sunday, August 2, 2015

Doorkeeper's Chamber

Has it been a year?
This will be a long post then....
The doorkeeper's chamber is slowly paper-clay'ed & painted, with more secret doors added.
Here the wall sections are not fixed in place yet, and I have had many tries at arranging them with the help of blue tape. Part of the issue was the view available from my proposed doorway, which required me moving the bookcase panel to the other side, else no books could've been seen. 

Various Greenman molds provided embellishments for the room, as well as a couple impromptu wall reliefs. I realize I should have made the bookcase shelves twice as deep but I'm not going back now.
For some reason I had made quite a serious bend in the panel that houses the fireplace. There was logic there once, but as I don't take notes well and I sometimes have weeks or months between chances to work on things, so often I forget what I was thinking.
Matching stone colors in different sessions isn't working out very well, but I'm no stickler.
Once the interior was done, I worked on egg carton stones for the outside. There wasn't as much useful egg carton as I'd expected, but I did make a nice mess of trimmings on my floor.
I treated it like a jigsaw puzzle & didn't concern myself with laws of physics or masonry.
I won't bore you with the nightmare of grouting...I had a nice syringe and I colored & watered down two kinds of grout, but the stuff kept drying in the tip and..let's just say it was weeks of sessions &  I'm truly amazed I didn't quit.

Painting the fireplace panel & nothing worked. Garish bricks, yellow stone.....it will wait for another day when I feel optimistic.
Here are a couple  shots of the room with the removable door panel & all the other panels propped up. My round tower is certainly off to a  wonky start!



So, to ease my frustration & renew the pleasures, a day of my life spent rolling scrolls, making books and creating stacks of documents & relics. My only struggle with this project was that I kept thinking every scrap of paper I had was 'the good one' and so I jealousy hoarded all the good ones to use in the more prominent & visible spots and soon had nothing for the 'supporting roles' 


But once in place, all the little troubles seem so benign.






















Oh there's much more to the saga- the leaded windows, the mirrored corner that I hope will hide the wiring.....but for today, we'll call it a success. Tomorrow, we'll try to do better.