Workshop: Winter Scene

I recently did a mini survey about what people would like to make at the next workshop. I should have learned from my previous courses... 😅 I mainly got the response: “It all seems like fun!” That's nice to hear, of course, but that still doesn't tell me what people want. Or apparently it doesn't matter what we do, it could be anything 😊 So I decided to come up with a scene that has a bit of everything in it: different structures, different techniques, an animal, miniature food, something botanical. And so the winter scene of a snowman with a few cozy chickens was created!

I had a lot of fun creating my scene and preparing the elements for the participants. Since I wanted to make sure everyone went home with a complete scene at the end of the day, I made sure I had some of the elements ready. This way we could get started during the course without the pressure that it might not be finished. And people could choose which elements they wanted to make and what, if any, they wanted to use from the prepared elements.

Previous courses (the gifts and the miniature food) were aimed at showing how you can make something with things you have at home (skewer or toothpick, toothbrush). That was really meant as an introduction. In this course I mainly wanted the participants to do something that beginners would not be able to do in an afternoon without guidance and without some special tools. For example, my partner printed a stamp for me to make chicken paw prints in the snow, so funny! Although the trusted toothbrush also came in handy again 😄

There was some impatience sometimes (detail work is challenging 😛) but above all satisfaction when people managed to make a part from scratch by themselves. For example, one participant turned out to be particularly good at making a realistic wood grain structure and another at making a beautiful scarf that flows in the wind. Creating the chickens in particular was a hit, it went from: “That will never work!” to “Oh wow, look how cute my chicken turned out!” I am very proud of my students and I believe they had a great time!

On to the next course!

As a base we used wooden discs with bark edging. The fence and the snowman contain skewers and cocktail sticks to keep everything together for baking. Everything else is made of Fimo (polymer clay). The snow is a blend of Soft White (0), Effect White Metallic Mother of Pearl (08) and a little bit of Effect Glitter White (52). The chickens are 'painted' with Fimo, no paint is used. The wooden disc has a diameter of 8.2 cm, with the snowman's arm 9.5 cm. The scene is 9 cm high.