The making of the giant Abominable Snowman footprint holiday lawn decoration continues.
When we last left off, the foot print was built up with expanding foam. I wanted to keep the blobby disturbed snow look the foam creates but make a bit cleaner without obvious gaps or holes between the blobs. Using what I have at hand, I decided to decoupage it with heavy duty paper towels (Scott brand "Rags in a Box") and a watery thin mix of patching plaster (DAP Presto Patch). Because of the foot's large size I was able to use full sheets of paper towels for most of it, so it went pretty quick.
Once dry I painted it with a thick coat of white latex house paint. Being all white and a shallow depth, the imprint was blown out and hard to see in daylight. It needed a faux shadow line to sell it. I spray painted the recessed areas in a cornflower-ish blue color and then knocked it back with white spray paint softening the blue overall but keeping darker areas along the imprint walls. The contrast let the print stand out and gave it a fun cartoony look.
From here (because I live in Los Angeles and real snow does not seem likely) once on the lawn, I'm going to add tufts of batting and a coat of canned artificial snow along the prop's edges so it looks more like a natural patch of snow on the grass. Next in Part Four... making the "Beware of Abominable Snowmen" sign post.
When we last left off, the foot print was built up with expanding foam. I wanted to keep the blobby disturbed snow look the foam creates but make a bit cleaner without obvious gaps or holes between the blobs. Using what I have at hand, I decided to decoupage it with heavy duty paper towels (Scott brand "Rags in a Box") and a watery thin mix of patching plaster (DAP Presto Patch). Because of the foot's large size I was able to use full sheets of paper towels for most of it, so it went pretty quick.
Once dry I painted it with a thick coat of white latex house paint. Being all white and a shallow depth, the imprint was blown out and hard to see in daylight. It needed a faux shadow line to sell it. I spray painted the recessed areas in a cornflower-ish blue color and then knocked it back with white spray paint softening the blue overall but keeping darker areas along the imprint walls. The contrast let the print stand out and gave it a fun cartoony look.
From here (because I live in Los Angeles and real snow does not seem likely) once on the lawn, I'm going to add tufts of batting and a coat of canned artificial snow along the prop's edges so it looks more like a natural patch of snow on the grass. Next in Part Four... making the "Beware of Abominable Snowmen" sign post.
