Coursework process photos (Fairy Tales Book Cake)

This is part 05 of my coursework process photos, and is also the last and shortest part.

This part is on the centerpiece, the Fairy tale book cake.

I used paper clay to create the flower and leaf shapes by molding them into moulds and then painting them when they are dry.

I created the basic shape of the book cake by cutting and folding cardboard into a box. Then I taped a piece of paper (those big and thick ones) onto the top of the box, taping only the edges of the book and the centre of the paper down to create the shape of the opened pages. I stuffed newspapers into the empty space between the paper and the cardboard box so that the paper would be lifted. And TADA the basic shape of the book was done!

I paper-mached the entire book twice, which used up a lot of white glue, newspaper and time. Then I painted the whole thing with a layer of gesso then white paint for an even base colour. I decided to paint the top of the cake with various hues of brown to give it an "old" feeling, as though it is some old fairy tale book. The wrinkly texture of the top of the cake also helped to create that image. I finally glued on the flowers and leaves along the borders of the book to create a pretty fairy tale book.

This is a photo of me painting the sides of the cake, probably taken by Zhi Ping. I used paper to dab brown paint along the sides of the cake, making it a chocolate cake, so that the colour matches the top of the cake. I also added in a layer of purple so that it would be a layer of blueberry jam in the center. Imagine if the whole cake was just brown, isn't it just plain boring?

The above photos show how the sides of the cake looks like!

I squeezed yellow acrylic paint to form the words "Once upon a time" and "Happily ever after". I chose yellow so that the words would pop-out more and the audience would notice it first when they see the book cake. However, I painted the "?" a dark red colour, which was similar to the red-brown colour of the book, so that the "?" would not be so obvious and would need the audience to discover it on their own.

The paint-squeezing method was to create an icing feel. If I painted the words on, it would exactly emphasise that this is a book CAKE is it? Also, the words are a tad bit scrawly, which is what I would imagine the Mad Hatter's handwriting to be. The squeezing of the paint was very frustrating as the air inside the bottle would always create bursts of paint while I was trying to write the words out. I had to cover all the splattered yellow paint with brown paint, and that took a lot of time and patience.

I think I did quite a good job with this book cake, even though it was not one of the main items for my coursework. My classmates and Zhi Ping's sister could tell that it was a cake, which was a major plus!