Chicago International 2008- Cucchi-Michieli Workshop
Ten years ago I run this workshop at Tom Bishop’s Chicago International together with Silvia Cucchi. I wish to celebrate this anniversary publishing the watering can tutorial after the basket one, hope you enjoy it! P.S. sorry for the low pics’ quality , they have 10 years as well.
STEP 1 – cut one thin metal foil strip 3 1/2′ long and and 1 1/4 ‘ high
STEP 2a – fold 1/8′ as shown in the pic.
STEP 2b – using a ruler and a thin spatula makes easy get a straigh folding.
STEP 3 – Smoothe the folded part pressing it with the spatula. This makes the edge more pleasant to see than a plain cutted edge. Repeat on the other side.
STEP 4a – If you wish to add some embossed lines…
STEP 4b – … or decorations this is the right moment to make them.
STEP 5a – bend the strip around a thick pencil, here I used an highlighter.
STEP 5b – overlap a little bit and cut off if necessary any exceeding lenght. Glue and press until the joint is completely dry.
STEP 6 – cut an half oval and fold the straigh edge as well as you did before for the strip’s edges.
STEP 7 – curl it on a round surface, the handle of a stylus ball tool or of a brush works great.
STEP 8 – With the help of a tweezer insert it in the watering can body then tun and lift it until it is in the right position. It should stay in position by itself. If not it is just too bended so widen it a little until it adheres perfectly by itself.
STEP 9 – Turn it upsidedown an put some dots of a strong glue to fix the contact points.
STEP 10 – Cut a 2′ long thin metal strip and bend one of the longer sides, flatten the bending and cut as shown in the picture.
STEP 11 –: repeat the bending on the other side. It could seem a little tricky to do but do not worry, you will get it!
STEP 12 – flatten the tiny strip you got and bend it on a round surface.
STEP 13 – put some glue on the ends of the bended strip, insert it into the can, put in place and let the glue dry.
STEP 14 – now fold and bend another strip as you did from step 10 to step 12 but add some more bending as shown in the pic. The red line shows to pay attention: this will be the handle of your watering can so the folds must be aligned on an imaginary straight line.
STEP 15 – Put a dot of glue on the folds on the side that will touch the can and put it in place as shown in the pic. Let the glue dry.
STEP 16 – and now ylet’s make the sput: cut a rectangular piece of thin metal foil, place on it a wooden skewer as shown in the pic…
STEP 17 – …and start to wrap the foil on the skewer, make it adhere as well as you can.
STEP 18 – Once the skewer is completely wrapped cut off the exceeding foil and complete the folding overlapping a little bit so the skewer inside will not show off
STEP 19 – pull back the skewer a little and then cut the pointed edge as shown in the picture.
STEP 20 – the cutting will squeeze the spout of course but now push forward again the skewer and the hole will show again.
STEP 21 – put the spout against the can and decide where to apply the second cut…
STEP 22 – …and cut.
STEP 23 –remove the skewer, cut its pointed end, cover it with glue and re-insert it into the spout. This is my trick to strenghten the spout and offer a wider bonding spout surface.
STEP 24 – glue the spout and let the glue dry completely. Sorry for the very low pic quality
STEP 25 – at each step always check if everything is correctly aligned and if not fix it.
STEP 26 – Now take a little bunch of air dry clay, I feel very comfortable with FimoAirLight®, and roll a thick layer.
STEP 27 – Use the watering can as a cookie cutter ….
STEP 28 – remove the outer exceeding clay and let the one inside to dry completely. HINT – It may happen that after drying the clay tends to shrink a little as it happen to all the air dry clays, no worry, remove the bottom, spread a little bit of glue on its border and then reinsert the bottom. I prefer to do this kind of bottom because most of the times we glue our items in a miniature scene and this kind of bottom offers a very good bonding surface, it helps to make the watering can stronger and, last but not least, it is no tricky at all to make it. Once dried you may paint it in a dark color and no one will notice it is thick.
Philadelphia Miniaturia 2012 Workshop
Once you have learned the process you may apply lot of variations as shown in this pic, these watering cans are the ones I teached in Philadelphia Miniaturia Fair in 2012. As you can see by changing the shape or the aging-texture you may get very nice items to use in your miniature settings
