Fungi Experimentation

Sorry to have been absent for so many days, but I've been busy experimenting with cement. You see, I've been wanting to add some large mushroom sculptures to my garden.....possibly mosaic ones. I went digging through all of my garden sculpture books and found a recipe. I've only made one mushroom so far and the process wasn't too bad. However, like most first time attempts at projects like this, you find where you've made a few mistakes and that will help with future creations. :-)

So, here's a picture of the mushroom this morning. It's far from finished.

I thought you might like to make a mushroom of your own, so I took pictures while making this one.

The ingredients I used:

sand, cement, water

I first dumped a whole bag of sand into a large plastic tub.

I then wet the sand until I was able to form it with my hand. Make sure you don't put too much water in, as you will then get air pockets in the top of your mushroom cap. (my mushroom has a few of these)

I then took a spoon and started digging out the shape of my mushroom cap in the sand. Pressing the sand firmly in order to retain the shape.

Next, I mixed my ingredients together for my mushroom. The recipe calls for 3 parts sand, 1 part cement, 1 part water. For this particular mushroom cap, I used 13 1/2 cups of sand, 4 1/2 cups of cement, and 4 1/2 cups of water. (water has not yet been added in picture below)

I then carefully poured my mixture into the form in the sand. Here's where I learned another trick. Don't pour straight from the bucket into your form, as the weight of the mixture may mess up your form. Instead, use a cup with a handle and scoop your mixture from the bucket and pour it slowly into your form.

In the picture above, you will see that I'm holding a very large nail (about 12 inches long). When my cement started to set up a bit (30 min), I inserted the nail into my mushroom cap about 1 1/2 inches deep or so. This is for stability. 

Now, it's time to start working on the mushroom stem.

I cut a piece of tar paper (roofing material) to the size, I thought when rolled up, would make a nice size for this particular mushroom cap. (about 10 inches wide x 14 inches long).

Why tar paper you ask? It's water proof and it doesn't stick to cement.

I rolled the tar paper into a cylinder shape and put duct tape around it.

I then made another batch of ingredients. This particular stem took about 1/2 the amount of ingredients as the mushroom cap.

I placed the tar paper stem mold over the nail and onto the mushroom cap. I used my handled cup and started pouring the mixture into the mold until it was full. Here's where I made another mistake. It looked like the mold was full, but there were air pockets in the mold, so my stem came out with some big holes (see below). Next time, I will use a stick and poke it into the mixture often to make sure that all gaps are filled.

I then added another large nail into the end of the stem (point up). That way, I can stick it into the ground to hold my mushroom up. You could also use a longer piece of re-bar and insert it into the cap and have it run all the way through the stem and out.

I let my mushroom set up over night and then began the process of digging it out this morning.

Once removed from the sand, I used a brush to remove some of the wet sand and to knock off some of the crumbly edges from the mushroom cap edge.

In this picture, you can see some of the holes caused by air pockets. I may try and patch them with mortar once the structure has cured.

The last step is to submerge the mushroom into a tub of water and let it stay there for 7 days to cure.

After that, you can bet that I'll probably start to mosaic it. I mean this is the Mosaic Cottage after all :-)

Did I mention that this mushroom is heavy??? Very!

Speaking of Fungi. I added a few to the front porch of the Fairy House.

Oh, and a ladybug too! :-)

Well, that's all for today. I must get back into the studio and get to crackin' on my Fall/Halloween projects, plus I have a couple of custom orders in the works. I hope you try to make a mushroom for yourself. It doesn't have to be a big one like mine. Try some smaller ones and plant them in your yard. You could paint them or glue stuff to them. Go Crazy! :-)

Until next time...

Hugs!

Michelle