Not on the High Street

I have made some scenic progress on the cat food box photographic diorama since those last experimental photos. This started with a ground cover mix made from tester pot paints, PVA and grey tile grout. The tester pots and PVA were both Wilko own-label products and sadly the opportunity to replace like-for-like is now likely to be limited. I had not been in a branch for ages but actually went in the day before they passed into administration and a couple of 1/2 price tester pots did end up in my basket... Whilst the ground cover mix was wet Woodland Scenics fine turf was sprinkled over and left to dry.

Hanging basket liner grass was then added as the start of the green scenery. There are more details on my technique in the Hanging Basket Liner Grass Step-by-Step.

 

With the grass trimmed I added some dead grass around the ballast edges using a Jarvis grass matt. Next came the basis of my brambles and undergrowth, made from the coir mat hanging basket liner, ripped apart, scrunched up, fixed with hairspray and then painted with brown aerosols (Halfords and Humbrol). They look a little ridiculous here, rather like over-scale birds nests, but as the one bottom-right shows, they will be vastly improved with trimming and adding foliage material (in this case recycled from a previous project).

After gluing the nests in place with PVA and leaving overnight to dry, I then added teased-out foliage mat material, Woodland Scenics and Hornby Skale Scenics, secured in place with hairspray and left to dry. Attention could then turn to adding further natural detail - more on that in due course.

Both hanging basket liners are Wilkos products, one discontinued for some time. It is great to model with high-street purchases, and worrying when a potential line of supply might go forever. Round here, with the warehouse up the road, everyone knows someone who has worked for Wilkinson's at some point, so my thoughts are with the staff at this difficult time...

Colin