Chipping Away at the Forest

Dear Reader,

In life, the big rewards often come from persistence, and The Squirrel King isn't so different from life ...

Our quilled flammable forest has been under construction for a few weeks now, and finally the time has come to really cover the landscape in trees! Rest assured we have a plethora of trees for the covering (that box on the right is just a small portion of the almost 1000!).

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Alien Fashionistas

Dear Reader,

A fun weekend in the sun, and you can all see that our darling Aliens have inherited our costume designer's sense of fashionable flare!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Scaling the Dam

Dear Reader,

As promised, here's a couple of stills from our effort shooting the dam the other day :)

On the right is a still of Justus hanging from Paul's feet as water gushes out of the dam below him!

And finally after much effort, atop the dam, Justus and Paul took a moment to survey the countryside around Nesting.

Back to the flammable landscape now!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Our Crane!

Dear Reader,

Some time ago we fashioned a crane (from some 2x4 wood, a clothes line and the Aliens' old bicycle training wheels), well more of a jib arm really, but either way it's our biggest piece of home-made equipment. Yesterday, we rolled it out for the dam scaling sequence.

Bill Watterson, in character as Paul, amused us with his befuddled awe at the device, while Justus and I watched in amusement.

Tomorrow I promise to pull some stills from the effort :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Lip of the Dam

Dear Reader,

We started with some cardboard boxes and drizzled on white paint.

The Aliens then swirled and stroked the white into a smooth texture ... and drizzled some black.

The black was mixed in and finally the finishing touches were affectionately applied ... an homogenizing synthesis that took us from Matisse to composite concoction.

With the lip of the Nesting dam looking great, I'm off to film its scaling and burst!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

A Smattering of Trees

Dear Reader,

I'm pleased to report that the landscape we've been working on has sprouted some trees!

Obviously there's still a thick forest to come - with many trees still to be grown - but it is great to see a few stands already littering the landscape.

Interestingly, quilling turns out to be infectious and I've had a slew of excellent foliage propagators helping out. Those background mountains will not be bare for long!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS. That big foil swath through the center will become a river at some point :)

Live, from Nature, Musings 3

Taking a break partway through "Powerglide," I remembered what Viktor Frankle had said about the first time you climb something, he said:

"Climb it as if you were climbing it for the second time, but this time, at this moment, do it right."

Well, suffice to say, that was the motivation I needed to huck for the jug way up high.

I missed, so from now on I'm going to climb routes as if for the third time. I'll report back soon.

~Justus

Splash of Summer Color

Dear Reader,

We've been a little focussed on our combustible landscape of late, still there's always time to follow a whim!

This week it was Alien Two who felt a simple need for a splash of color. So while I continued with the trees (see image below for the latest batch) she liberally lavished great sheets of paper with her own brilliantly bright sight :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

In Search of More Groundcover, We Found ...

Dear Reader,

A core theme of The Squirrel King is the importance of embracing life.

One of the reasons this resonates so strongly with us is that life is full of connectivity and when you do stuff, you simply can't help happening on new and wonderful experiences.

Yesterday was a classic example of this. While in search of more gorgeous paper to cover the ground for our fire (rather than revisiting the wonderful website Handmade Paper I erred on the side of speed this time and headed to Bergamot Station - a wonderful collection of art galleries and shops). We did indeed find our paper, but we found much more ....

While wandering, we met Kim Abeles (left), the wonderful artist responsible for the sculptured trees enrapturing the Aliens. Later, perusing her website, I noticed she's also made an enormous paper person who could easily be the owner of the feet we made a couple of weeks back.

Such delightful synchronicity :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Grasswork

Dear Reader,

Our green grass arrived and we've begun assembly of the flammable landscape!

I'm excited by what we already have, but can't wait to see the trees. As with so many of the Squirrel King sets adding elements exponentially energizes the scenes!

Stay tuned for more :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Gregory Euclide

Dear Reader,

Multimedia is a big part of The Squirrel King, and every once in a while I find something or someone who is already doing great stuff in this space.

Yesterday, it was Gregory Euclide with some mixed media art pieces that incorporate natural objects, paint and paper. So intricate!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Town Plans

Dear Reader,

The time has come to assemble the flammable forest and town. Here are the plans (as drawn up by Alien One and annotated by Yours Truly), stay tuned for the implementation.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Controlled Burning

Dear Reader,

Motivated by testing the efficacy of our flammable canopy we selected half a dozen trees and quilled flowers, and watched them burn. The results ...


Interesting ... a little more controlled than I'd hoped for. Things to be learnt, perhaps an accelerant may be needed for the trunks. In any event we can't wait to do the entire set!!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

A Matchstick Barn

Dear Reader,

Our flammable little township is coming along. As you can see we've built a barn - doors still to be attached - which should go nicely up in flames.
And of course every paddock needs fences.

Trees we have by the hundred, and in the foreground of the

final photo you can see a blue bridge replete with quilled cobblestones.

All we need is the sheets of hand-made paper for the ground and we can begin assembling :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Bonsai Inspiration!

Dear Reader,

While looking at inspiration for a miniature version of Nesting - which, as I've mentioned, needs to be flammable for our purposes - I came across this masterwork in bonsai.

Takanori Aiba is the artist behind the wonderful creation here. His work includes whimsical updatings of the ancient art of bonsai.

So much to be inspired by!!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

A Fashionable Diversion

Dear Reader,

As many of you know, the Trouble and Strife is our esteemed costume designer.

What you may not know is that the Aliens and I are always doing our best to inspire her. We aim to invigorate, both through modern interpretive ideas (a la Alien One's pants) and by recalling the highlights of more traditional garb (me tending the Hawaiian themed spit roast).

Back to serious production design tomorrow :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Flammable Forests

Dear Reader,

With pyrotechnics in mind, we've been giving thought over here at Squirrel King headquarters to the subject of burning down a town.

Paper is our bottom line solution, well paper and matches. And so it is that we got started quilling. The first forest is now well underway

with flowers and farm structures to follow.

I'm waiting on some beautiful papers to line the ground with, but very soon the forests will line the hills! Stay tuned :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Ephemeral Nesting

Dear Reader,

As I obliquely alluded to a couple of days ago, I've been cogitating ways to realize the incineration of the entire township of Nesting and its surrounding countryside.

This is not the easiest of things to achieve visually, but working back from fire, I came up with paper and matches and so a plan has been hatched. First though, we need a substructure, and for this I've returned to one of our old faithfuls, papier mache. However with the inferno in mind, I decided to give it a metal sub-substructure so that the whole world doesn't simply collapse under the flames to come.

So today's pics are of the foundations. Stay tuned, there's lots more to come ....

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Inspired by Papier Mache

Dear Reader,

Working on a papier mache miniature of the Airstream trailer that Robin lures the cats into, I inadvertently inspired Alien One to begin a project of her own; a delightful moment underlining the power of role-modeling.

And now, a quick lesson in the art of papier mache (counter-clockwise, from top right):

"take a strip of paper"
"dip it in the glue"
"rub it together"

"smear carefully on your doll's bunk-bed"

And the result: something harkening back to the Alien spaceship we shot almost two years ago now!

Chin chin 

Ruthless Whims

The Zen of Pyrotechnics

Dear Reader,

A central theme of The Squirrel King is the importance of simply partaking.

My cogitations on this theme often revert to the art of Buddhist monk sand drawings (which are swept away once completed), however, today being the 4th of July, I couldn't help considering the similarities to fireworks.

So for those of you in America, take an extra breath to savor the journey that brings you tonight's pyrotechnic displays. Those of you outside America may have to wait a little longer for a fireworks display, but in the interim, you can meditate on Werner Herzog's narration of the Buddhist monk's mandala sand art.

You can also check out this timelapse of the mandala's creation.

Happy 4th of July!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Inspired by the Possibilities of Paper!

Dear Reader,

Recently, while looking for inspiration for a landscape that I could burn, I came across the wonderful site: All Things Paper.

The quilled birds are just the starting point ... a quilled landscape should burn magnificently!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Weekend Tendrils

Dear Reader,

What a wonderful weekend of investigation and possibility, with all manner of avenues being explored simultaneously!

Alien One took up the pen ... and then the computer.


Alien Two made her own house, and I worked on some more papier mache.



And then we all got sidetracked, finishing with a little quilling, something that may well take over the next few weeks ...

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims