Here are the last of the girls and their scenery for the moment. It was a really creative week away. I still have a few little bodies waiting to be dressed and a bag of driftwood waiting from a previous holiday, at the same beach, that I never knew what to do with... so there may be more to come in the future. who knows?
Guarding the treasure.
Wild and windy weather - the tree is made from dried seaweed glued around a driftwood stem
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Couldn't choose which background I liked best so I put then both in. The sword is a sharpened matchstick tied together with cotton and darkened with a pen.
And she kind of demanded something a little more refined as her prop so got a swing seat!
Here are two from yesterday who were promised their own boats (hot glue gun has been active!)
I made the boats while I was away but ran out of time to photograph them at the real beach so they have had to put up with a studio set (ie a bench in my back garden and some scrapbooking papers). They don't seem to mind.
And yesterday's beach-towel laze is over... she's up and on an adventure like the rest.
More tomorrow!
More of the same but different!
I think she's my favourite so far - she's like a female Link from Legend of Zelda - off on her own adventure in a kind of dragon-headed boat.
These two belong together as a pirate crew but, as yet, no boat... its coming! So i photographed them in a little crevice of a dried clay beach edge that does a very good impression of a tiny pirate cave,
And she's hardly wild at all, but maybe she'll get her own boat eventually. Crack open the hot glue gun... here comes more driftwood!
Before I went on holiday, I had a clear-out of my craft stuff, desperate to find some bits I could take away with me as a holiday craft project. I hadn't crafted in so long - Life (mostly other people's) had taken over and I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a good, soul- restoring craft time.
Amongst the many, many boxes and tubs of intended stuff, I found little bead heads I'd made when I was into making Kokeshi dolls out of an old beaded car seat http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/from-car-seat-cover-to-kokeshi.html .
This is what I made and took - painted bead heads, wire bodies and arms and feet coated a few times with pale pink nail varnish so they were thicker, less wire-like and no longer sharp on the ends. To this I added little pieces of fabric and felt, needles and thread and a fully-loaded hot glue gun.
first they were dressed and then, after a few trips to the beach for little pieces of driftwood. they got their boats and scenery...
Windy conditions on the seafront are not conducive to photography but I managed to snap these and grab the girls before they were blown off the breakwater into the sea.
More to come...
This is the last big room of the Harry Potter Exhibition and contains the huge model of the castle in all its glory.
If you look closely to the right in the photo below, you can see the people looking at the model and get some sense of scale.
There is a lighting rig up at ceiling level around the whole model and the light subtly changes from sunrise, through the day to sunset and darkness as you walk around.
Night is not an easy light to take photos in, but you can imagine tiny miscreants creeping about the corridors with invisibility cloaks, solemnly swearing they are up to no good!
And lastly (just before the shop), you come to the wand display: everyone who worked on Harry Potter films apparently has their own wand box, named and stacked on a shelf, or piled on the stairs like new stock waiting to be put away.
There are staff in there who know where most of the names are and particularly the favourites that visitors always ask them to find. They do it with a new enthusiasm each time someone approaches them, even though they must get asked the same few names over and over again throughout their shift.
I confess... I LOVE cardboard models of buildings! I have yet to find the same enthusiasm from the rest of my family, but I still can't throw away an interesting box in case it makes something intriguing.
So here is my fascination made real in the Harry Potter Exhibition... Oh to be small enough to go inside them!
Part of Hogwarts:
The Whomping Willow
Diagon Alley
The Three Broomsticks pub
The Burrow - home of the Weasleys.
Is this where Luna Lovegood lived?
The Owlery
Hogwarts from above: as you walk along the path it leads you up and along so that the you revisit each one from a different perspective,
eventually leading you out to the amazing culmination... so wonderful it made the lady in front of me burst into tears...
But you'll have to wait till next time for that (and that really will be the end of the Harry Potter tour, I promise).
