When we hear the words winter or Christmas a lot of people, including me, start thinking about the world as described in Charles Dickens stories. One artist who illustrated this wonderful world very well was the Dutchman Anton Pieck. I am a great fan of his work. I have in the past done several projects based on his art work but when I found this battered old clock case in a charity shop I was tempted once again.
Actually it was my friend who saw it first. He held up a rather unfriendly looking building supposed to look like a pub and said : I bet not even you can make something nice out of this.
So I gave it a good look and noticed it was supposed to be a clock but that the actual clockwork had gone missing and that taking the dial off would give me a nice upstairs window because there was a hole behind the dial where the battery unit had been.
. The wood was fine and all the out of scale stuff like barrels and bottles and signs and the dial could be easily removed plus it had the advantage of being able to stand or hang on the wall because it was actually just the front of a building. It was sort of 1: 24 scale and the price was right: $1. So I took it home , made coffee and started thinking about this new project.
I knew it had to be done in Anton Pieck style and I wanted either a toy shop or a bakery. I also realized that unless I wanted to build a sort of box or house behind it I would be left with a very shallow place with very little room for any kind of interior. After a good think I decided that decoupage would be the best way to solve this problem. I searched the net for pics by Anton Pieck and found some gorgeous bakery scenes but no suitable toy shops and I knew it was to be a bakery.
But first I had to strip the sad looking house. My hairdryer soon melted all the big blobs of glue and I got rid of bottles and other stuff. I decided to leave the door and the door frame so I had a base for the new door. I gave the whole place a coat of white paint and then glued crumpled tissue paper all over the front and sides . After a few coats of cream paint that turned into nice old looking plaster and I was on my way.
I tackled the roof first because I was not yet sure how I would deal with the interior of the shop. I cut shingles out of sandpaper and glued them down with tacky glue. Then I painted the roof black and dry brushed it with gray so it would look old.
By that time I had figured out that a shallow sort of box frame glued to the front of the house where the original bottles and barrels had been would make a nice shop window. The Anton Pieck picture I wanted to use did show a bakery shop seen through a window so it was perfect for my scene. I decided that I would use a small section of the picture behind a glass door and the rest would go behind the window I was going to make.
I glued the piece of the picture I wanted to use for the door on top of the old door. Then I made a door frame what would fit over the old door and sit on top of the old frame. There would be some space between the glass and the picture this way and that would add some depth. I glued clear sheet behind the door frame and glued it in place. It is a good idea to paint the door frame before you add the glass ..............yup I learned the hard way.
For the window I used a wood box frame which would look nice beside the door size wise. I glued the other part of the Anton Pieck picture to the back wall of the box. I did give the sides a coat of clear varnish. Then I added the shelve and filled the window with baked goodies left over from my clay free experiments. Remember to make sure you will still see the picture behind the shelves !!
Adding the baked goods will immediately add a 3 D effect I glued the box frame to the house before adding the “glass “and the window frame.
I Painted the wood to match the door. Yes I did spill some on the walls but decided it would add to the old and well lived in look that I needed and I just wiped most of it off with an old cloth.
Then I had to face the top floor . I will tell you all about that later so bear with me..
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