"Hotel Marakesh" paper art

My latest art project, 3D papercraft "Hotel Marrakesh," 5"x7"x1"deep. Sold it at the annual Green Lake (WI) Fine Arts Show. I am a member of the Art Mid-Wisconsin artists' collective (30+ members), and 14 of us shared display of paintings, photographs, prints, jewelry, pottery, and my paper arts. This piece started as a digital image; I printed multiple copies and cut and layered them to create three dimensions. The "railing" is printed on transparency film, an experiment that turned out better than expected.

"Hotel Vincent Van Gogh" and others -- 3-Dimensional Paper Art

Each of these pieces is made using photo-realistic textures and photographs printed on cardstock and layered to produce a 3-dimensional image. 

"Hotel Vincent Van Gogh" is an 8"x10" original composition using photo-realistic textures and bits and pieces of several photographs.

"Votes for Women" is the facade of the "nonconformist chapel" paper model kit from Scalescenes, with stained glass windows from my digital parts bin. The background photograph is from the Library of Congress collection. Size is 8"x8". 

"Opera Francais" is from a reproduction of a French paper toy theatre kit published in 1921. The theatre is 5½"x5½" in an 8"x8" frame. The original toy theatre was about 15"x15".

The new "Birdmobile"

If you happen to follow me on Facebook, you know that my beloved "Birdmobile" -- a dark blue 2006 Subaru outback with whooping crane and Operation Migration decals on both sides -- is no more.

So, I recently bought my first new (used) car in 20 years. After much research I chose a 2018 Subaru Forester, and as soon as the weather is warm enough to apply vinyl "wraps," she will come out as Birdmobile, the Younger. 

It's partly nostalgia (I worked with Operation Migration for a decade), partly continued reverence for the whooping cranes and other wild critters, and partly a way to help me find her in a parking lot, since she looks a lot like every other fat-ass SUV on the road. (I do love my Forester, in spite of her carbon-copy looks.) 

The first Birdmobile arose to solve a similar problem. In 2006, in Northeast Wisconsin, you couldn't swing a cat without hitting someone else's Subaru Outback. Ten years later, new Outbacks looked just like Hondoyota and ChryForMC SUVs. Classic Outback drivers often waved to each other, like people driving restored Model As. 

What happened to creativity in autobody design? Drive past any Ford/Chrysler/GM or Honda/Toyota/Subaru dealership today and try to pick out separate makes on the fly. So many of the current flock of new cars and light trucks look as though they were all designed and built in the same East German Tractor Factory. I've seen prettier grills on a cornpicker.

The AMC Pacer, '60 Plymouth Valient, and '62 Ford Thunderbird were arguably among the world's ugliest cars, but at least their designs were creative. . . sort of. To look at the Pacer is to suspect that its designers were medicated for non-medical reasons. Would that help the current design bureaus? It might be worth a try. 

 

Some Older Models I've Built -- All Paper

The Hubble Telescope is a very nice kit, a free download from NASA. The only glitch in the kit is that it's hard to keep the solar panels from sagging. If I were doing it again, I'd work out some kind of internal wire bracing, anchored in the internal ribs of the telescope body.

The MQ-1 kit is from PaperReplika.

I built the FlyModel MiG-15 as a cutaway for a model 

exhibit at the EAA's AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh.

I think the Me-109Z and MiG-3 (both 1/33) are 

from Modelart, but I wouldn't swear by it.

The La-5 (FlyModel?) was one of my first paper models. 

I hadn't yet worked up the courage to add the landing gear.

Emil Zarkov's H34w -- a really nice kit from Modelart in 1/33 scale

I built the 1/33-scale Zenith CH 801 STOL as a display for Medicine on the Move, a medical NGO operating in Africa. They used the CH-801 on floats to get in and out of rivers and lakes in remote areas. The digital paper kit is from Stahlhart Papercrafts, and is offered in two scales and several liveries.

 Another Modelart kit from the late Emil Zarkov

The Princeton Brewery building still stands in Princeton, WI, though it's been vacant for years. I took photos and used them to create the low-relief kit. It used to be a Freebie on Clever Models' site, but I don't see it there now. If you want it, rattle my cage. 

This is one of Marek's kits frrom ecardmodels.com -- 1/33 scale.

Three-Dimensional Paper Art - Various Scales

If you follow this blog, you know that I build a lot of HO scale buildings, mostly out of paper, using photo-realistic texture papers from Clever Models, Scalescenes, and other sources. Last summer, a visual artist friend of mine was admiring my scale models and said, "Some of your facades would look good framed and hanging on a wall." Hmm.

The results are the pieces you see here. I started with photos of buildings and layered them in cardstock to produce art pieces. Scales vary from 1:48 to 1:64. I usually work in 1:87, so the larger scales have been a nice change.

The three pieces pictured below have been accepted into a juried art exhibit at Ripon College, to open early next year. I have plans for several more similar pieces to be entered in other art shows . . . as if I don't have enough hobbies already. Good grief.

Fine Scale Miniatures' "Dexter's Dead End" Paper Model - 1:87 Scale

This is a copy of FSM's "Dexter's Dead End" in paper models at 1:87 scale. I followed the Fine Scale Miniatures plans pretty closely, adding the berm and track at the front and adding the "American Biological" building in the back corner. It's a freelanced building based one of the businesses on "Cannery Row" in John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. It replaces an auto repair shop in the original FSM scheme. \

All of the buildings are paper built from the drawings and templates in the FSM kit. Loading docks, the bridge, and other details are basswood dimensional lumber. The road is cardstock.

I was able to purchase the FSM instructions, drawings, and templates on ebay. The textures come mainly from Clever Models with a few from Scalescenes. Scenery materials are from Woodland Scenics and Scenic Express. The base and contours are foam. The diorama measures about 15x24 inches.

I tried using Berkshire Junction's "E-Z Line" for power lines. Never again. I know some modelers swear by it, but the stuff is so fine that it's nearly impossible to see, much less handle. It just goes wherever it wants to. Trying to tie a knot in it is an exercise in frustration. The few times I did get it to cooperate, it was so fine that it disappeared on the model. I ended up using sewing thread on this diorama. I've since purchased fine grey elastic thread from a craft shop. It's a bit thicker than scale but the grey color makes it less conspicuous. It's easy to work with and it stretches if you bump it, so your power poles don't get pulled over.

McKinnon Beverage Co. - 1:87-Scale Paper Model

 This is a fictional building & tenant that I built for a diorama I'm working on. I started with just the archway -- a photo of a larger-scale model that I found on the Web. I used several copies of the photo to create three-dimensional detail, then added the rest of the building to fit the space I needed. The brick walls are from Clever Models' textures. The windows and wall signs are from my "digital parts box." The window grills are from Tichy Train Group. I didn't detail the back wall because it won't be visible on the diorama.