In honour of Hobbits

In honour of the Premier of The Hobbit (in Wellington, NZ earlier today) I'd like to share with you one of my latest little creations, the Enchanted Faerie House. I wanted to created something that looked like it could have been part of Hobbiton.

 This wee house is one of my most favourite creations so far. It was made specifically for the piece of burl wood which supports the whole sculpture. This house is quite small...measuring just over 12 inches tall. The roof comes off, the doors open, and of course there are lights! 
   The windows and doors are made from a secret process which I have developed which uses Dragonfly wings as the design source.







Here the roof has been removed and we can see some more details of the dramatic front entry-way. The doors are opened by pulling on the golden leaf.








Here we get a glimpse of the sparkly door panels and more window details. The house walls are made from Golden birch bark which grew high up in the Adirondack mountains. The twig trim is White Cedar collected along the mountain streams. The rocks are sandstone collected further down the same river. The main roof and side roofs are "turfed" with exotic wool and yarns which are needle-felted in place. Natural moss is glued in place for the final landscaping.






Here is a glimpse of how it all started. The door was made and fitted into the stonework and wood base but it was constructed along with the house... once the entire house was completed, it was fitted back into this original position.

Here you can get an idea of just how tiny the whole thing is from this window detail. These windows are completed and ready to install. (These ended up in another construction but they are the same scale as the ones I used for this house). You may be able to make out the pattern in the "glass". This is derived from photographs of Dragonfly wings. The images are printed on a transparent medium and then laminated using a secret process to preserve the details but also make them very durable and a wee bit sparkly....which is hard to see in this image. Each window takes about 2 hours to make! This image represents nearly a full days worth of work.

   I've been thinking a lot about the merits of "slow work" lately....but I'll write about that in another post. I wanted to share these on this important day...congratulations to all involved in the Hobbit movie and I hope you all get a chance to see it when it comes out next month!