The Summer Studio

Once in a while I get an idea for a project, but have to let it simmer on the back burner while I work on other things. This is one of those projects. When I designed the Garden Cottage for my Guild School class, I was thinking about other outbuildings that might be in someone's back yard. An artist's studio came to mind immediately, but I wasn't quite sure about the style. I finally decided on a more modern building, just for a change of pace. We live in a mid-century modern house, so this studio would look very nice in our back yard!

A happy recent discovery was that N Scale flowers are becoming available. That's what the sunflowers are, though I repainted them because I'm much too fussy to leave anything "as is." The hostas (green and white plants) are HO scale vegetables that I assembled NOT according to instructions and repainted.

My good friend Terry Junger made the two in progress paintings on the easels.

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Email Issues

I have recently discovered that some emails sent to inquire about my miniatures were apparently trapped by my evil spam filter, and I never saw them. Now that I am aware of the problem, it shouldn't happen again.  If you have emailed me in the last few months and never received a reply, please re-send your email for a prompt response, and accept my apologies.

At last!

After disappearing into my studio for a month, I have new things to show.  First is that storybook style cottage I mentioned in my last post.  I'm calling it "Charming Cottage":

It's a somewhat smaller version of the Glencairn Cottage I made a couple of years ago.The chimney was inspired in part by the Hugh Comstock "Hansel" cottage in Carmel, CA. I loved the niche for the flowerpot in the chimney, so I just has to include it in my version.

It was a bit of a challenge putting the curve in the roof, but I managed it by bending 1/64" plywood with the grain.

The interior is a bit dark - just like the full size houses. There's a sitting room on the ground floor and a bedroom upstairs. The fireplace is the same asymmetrical shape as the chimney. On the right side of the bedroom is a tiny porcelain cat on a hassock by Sylvia Mobley, which unfortunately only partly shows in the picture. 

If you blow up the photos, you'll see that I really should have been sure to blow all the landscaping foam out of the house before I took the pictures!