In this post about making a brick-wall (part 2) I will show you how I coloured and cut the sheets of sanding-paper that I used for creating my bricks.
After priming the sheets ( I think used about 10 or 15 sheets all together) with gesso, I covered them all with a transparant layer of burnt sienna (this is called a "glacis" in dutch) . I let this dry throroughly. On top of that I put some burnt umber, sometimes diluted with lots of water, sometimes apllied a bit thicker.
With the burnt umber still a bit wet, I applied another layer of transparant colour, this time I used some cadmium red. Because the layer underneath is still a bit wet, both colours mix in a surprisingly way.
I made sure to cover all the sheets of sanding-paper with multiple transparant layers of colour,
but I did not treat every sheet exactly the same as the other.
For the bricks need to differ slightly from each other, but must harmony together.
but I did not treat every sheet exactly the same as the other.
For the bricks need to differ slightly from each other, but must harmony together.
Sometimes I waited for the layer underneath to dry completely before applying the next one , sometimes I put a fresh layer of "glacis" on top of a still wet layer of paint. And sometimes I just let my wet brush drip above the sheet and wait for whatever happens. I simply experimented a little with serveral colours, like umber, sienna, ocre, ultramarine and white.
In the end I had lot of sheets in variations of a brownish-red,
as you can see for example in the picture below.
The next step would be cutting the sheets of sanding-paper
in long pieces of 5 mm width.
I made a handy tool for this; it existed of a wooden stick with two pieces of wood glued at each end of it. Both pieces were 5 mm width, so they had exactly the measurement of the paper strips to be cut.
I made sure the length of my sheets fitted nicely between the two extruding wooden parts.
In this way I cut the sheets, one after the other, in strips of 5 mm width.
I used a strong craft-knife and frequently replaced the blades for the sanding-paper blunts them in no-time!
It's really convenient if one glues the strip of wood on a plastic household plate (for slicing vegetables, etc) so you won't ruin your cutting-mat.
As you can see, I ended up with lots of long strips,
slighty (but sometimes very!) different in colour from each other.
The most efficient way of cutting all strips in smaller pieces,
is by taking a single strip and drawing a vertical line every 18 mm.
I used a piece of cardboard to do this,
so I did not have to measure every 18 mm with a ruler.
so I did not have to measure every 18 mm with a ruler.
When I had marked every 18 mm on a single strip, I held this strip together with 4 or 5 other strips. With a pair of scissors I cut every pencilmark. In this way, I got about 6 "bricks" with every singel cut.
In the end, I mixed all single " bricks" together.
I painted the walls of the house in grey, as you can see in picture below.
After cutting all strips of sanding-paper into pieces 18 mm width, I asked the roadmaker to drop them in front of my house :-)
Next, I drew horizontal lines on every wall of the house, perpendicular with the coners of the house.
The distance between every horizontal line is 6 mm ( again I used a self-made ruler, see my Post about making a slated roof).
I started gluing the "bricks" on a horizontal line, leaving about 1 mm between every "brick" .
I used white glue and this worked well.
I used white glue and this worked well.
As you can see in the picture, I made vertical pencilmarks to be sure the bricks would follow a straight line from the top of the house untill the groudfloor
In this way I decorated the main walls of my house and it took me a whole winter! So now you have red both my posts about paper-bricks and you still are convinced you can do this too without having a nervous breakdown in the end, I think this is just the right technique for you :-)
