Little Trimmings

Small-scale haberdashery for the miniaturist and doll-maker

Rik Pierce Workshop - May 2008

Christine took the first week in May off to attend a Masterclass in Creative Paperclay with the world reknown master of Paperclay, Rik Pierce.


Here are a selection of photographs of the project we undertook - The Witches House

The walls All the internal walls covered with paperclay and left to dry. It doesn't show up well in the picture, but the surface is dimpled and roughed up, not smooth. The dark patches are pieces of wattle and daub showing through where the plaster has broken away from the walls - probably due to damp, or maybe a witches spell that went wrong.	Building starts Here I have started attaching the walls to the base, lots of glue and masking tape to keep the pieces in place while they dry.
All walls in place All the walls are in place now, no fiddling while it dries, so off to work on other parts. That's Jan (who arranged the course) in the background, she is into her 2nd week so a lot further on with her house.	Roof slats Roof slats are glued, and clamped, in place - note the stained side is underneath, as the top will be covered in 'tiles'. Just got the little bit at the bottom to do, which is over the fireplace.
Dormer window All the roof slats are now finished and the dormer window sides are glued in place.	Chimney breast A close up of the chimney breast with rocks and brickwork, and shows the start of the roof tiles. A few here and there are lifted and broken to add to the dilapidated look.
Front porch Back home, and managed to find a bit of time to paint wash the outside to mucky it up a bit. Also added a well worn porch roof over the front door.	Distressed look I finally got to grips with the various different 'mucky water' washes and although there is still work to do I am happy with the progress so far. And yes the roof is a bit bright, it still needs to be toned down a fair bit.
More pictures to come as I progress with the project - so it could be a while as I have all last weeks work to catch up on first.