Thanks Deb,

The mushrooms are hand formed, then carved to refine the shape. I didn't want cookie cutter 'shrooms. They are vary between 12" & 14" high, the caps are about 12" across. The tricky part was forming the stems around the rebar. Experience tells me I would do things differently next time.

-GC

Those are great! Have you tryed to incoorperate solar powered lights into shrooms?
Jo

Ooohhh. Now I want to make mushrooms. I love them lit. Once they get all mossy, they're going to look amazing day AND night...

GardenChicken, your stumps looks real. Great job! Gonna have to try that.

I LOVE your mushroom lights. I made several, but love the whimsical look of yours. Mine look like bowls on stems. Wonder why? lol

If you had a path where you wouldn't see the back, I'll bet you could wire already made mushrooms by putting the wire up the back and somehow attaching the light under the mushroom part. Any ideas on the best way to do that?

How would you do the stems differently? Did you have a problem with the HT staying up on the rebar?

Kay

Jo, I haven't thought of using solar lights in the mushrooms, but love the idea of solar lighting. These mushrooms are pretty old, at the time there wasn't a whole bunch of choices for solar lighting on the market. I would like to pick a couple up and see if they could be taken apart and re-assembled in some useable fashion. If I didn't have to run wiring in my garden I'd be very happy!

Kay, you might have to experiment with adding lighting to existing pieces. It could likely be done if you could find lights that were small & unobtrusive. My mushrooms are visible from all directions, the lights are countersunk into the caps because where they sit is slightly elevated from street level. I didn't want folks walking by to be blinded by the lights or be able to see the light housings in daylight. (Sometimes I over think things!)
As far as the rebar, I'm not sure what I would do differently. I was pretty much a tufa virgin when these were made, perhaps my tufa was too wet... I really don't recall. In the end it worked and that's all that matters!

Thanks,
GC

I don't see any stumps or lights???

I would love to see your projects but I second Yoganut, I don't see any stumps or lights?????

Sorry 'bout that! They are back now. Bigger, better and faster than a speeding bullet.
I have included some late additions to the 'concrete collection', hope you like them (they would be the round things).

Here is a link that might be useful: Updated link...

Gee, I think you did a fantastic job! I have never done this "tufa" thing yet, but I sure am looking forward to giving it a shot! Wonderful pix and I hope you don't mind me copycatting your lighted shroom idea if I ever get that good at it.

Was the stepping stone looking piece pattern free form or did you use a mold for it? I really love the look of it as well. All your stuff looks great!

Glad you liked my stuff, maddalfred.

The stepping stone was 'free form', I worked out the details of the knotted Celtic hearts on paper, then transfered the pattern and carved it.
((Gibberish about it's history -----> It is actually a gift for my sister & her hubby who just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. The 5 hearts symbolize them and their 3 kids. The other side is carved to read 'Happy 25th' K&M, that way they have a choice of which side is 'up'.))

Wow! Your work is beautiful! I can't comment on just one piece because everything is so incredible! What great talent!

Melanie

GC, great stuff. I really like that stepping stone, and everything else. I haven't tried carving yet, but you are making it tempting!

Jo

GC,

I'm impressed with your ability to sculpt 'tufa. That Celtic cross stepping stone is really impressive. Those who have tried carving 'tufa will know how difficult this type of carving is. Not to mention your Celitc balz.

Thanks for sharing!

peak

Hi Garden Chicken, thanks for the link. Now I see them. I showed them to my BF, and we collaberated on our ideas. We don't have a photo program, but if what we tried works out, we'll have to set one up.

We liked all your projects, but what we're trying is the mushroom lights. Sand casting is what we've tried.

Instead of putting rebar with a void, what we did was put a piece of pipe in the center of the stem with a hole for the wire to feed through. OK, so you're saying, when the wired pipe goes into the cap of the mushroom 1" above the stem (or so), what stops the cap from eventually cutting through the covering of the wire? BF says he'll drill a hole into the pipe where the wire comes out by the base of the stem near the cap and bottom and pull the wire out. We also allowed around 6" to be pounded into the ground. What do you think? Great minds working together? :)

I have to add, I think everything is going well except for the sandcasting. We'll be anxiously awaiting for the unveiling. We expect this weird "thing" to arise.

GC, your work is beautiful!

Thanks for bumping up this thread, I missed it before and I have to say, those shroom lights are FABU! I love them!

Sally

Thank you all for the compliments! *blush*

peak, glad you liked the carved stuff, it was great fun to do.

Yoganut... ya, pipe woulda been too easy... (why didn't I think of that!), it really does make a lot of sense. I had carved a little groove for the wires to sit in, so they didn't get squashed, but your idea is much better. And being able to anchor them into the ground makes sense too. Hmmm... must add that to the old bucket of tricks.

GC, you are truly talented. It would be difficult to choose a favorite because your items are all equally impressive. Did you create the planter boxes (troughs) using a form? If so, what kind. I would like to build a couple in the future.

What 'tufa recipe has worked best for you?

I look forward to seeing more of your beautiful work. Thank you for sharing. º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºTufaº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºOn¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºFellowº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºTufaneers!
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QLT

Thanks Queen!

The troughs were all made using forms. The smallest one and the big one behind it were made with both an inside and outside form, constructed of lumber/plywood scraps. I packed the tufa into the bottom, made drainage holes, then placed the inside form and began packing the walls. The small one only has fibreglass fibres for reinforcing, the large one has chicken wire in the walls.
The lighter coloured one was made using a box constructed of 1" thick insulating foam (Styrofoam SM) - this stuff is a dream to work with compared to the wood. I simply (ha!) packed the tufa into the bottom, then started packing 'up' the walls until it was complete. It has no reinforcing. Wouldn't use this 'oustide form only' method of trough building again, it was waaaay too much work pushing & packing by hand, although 'demoulding' it was a snap!

As far as the recipe, for the first two mentioned, I used 1:1 1/2:1 1/2 - portland, peat, perlite. This is my favorite. The third trough, which is a strange kinda colour, is the same recipe with a bucket of soapstone dust thrown in that was left over from one of my other endeavors.

Hope this makes sense! -GC

GREAT shroom lights!!!! LOVE the fact that you sculpted it by hand they look beautiful!! Are the caps of the shrooms rebar also??
Anela

Garden Chicken, the mushroom cap is OK and it's curing. We made a groove for the wire on that too. The stem needs a LOT of work. It turned out pretty flat on one side due to sandcasting and rounded on the other. We've added some around the bottom to make it circular and are waiting to bring it further up until that sets up.

BF came up with an idea for a mold for the stem if you can find them. Toy bowling pins are usually made out of hollow plastic. They could be cut off where they go in at the bottom and cut off part of the top if they would be tall enough.

I got the idea for the pipe by looking into the lights we have lining the sidewalk. We may even be able to use those wires and little lights. A set of those lights might be found at garage sales.

Anela, glad you like 'em, no, there is no rebar in the caps.

Yoganut, yup, those stems can be a problem! I hope you'll post some pictures when they are done, or in progress...

This is a tree trunk I came across on the internet. The caption said it is engraved and stained concrete in the Animal Kingdom at Disney. Just thought someone might find some inspiration from it.
{{gwi:74889}}

mudmaker! This kinda makes my stump look small and pathetic!
Wow, there is definitely inspiration in this trunk. Did the site say who created it?

That certainly wasn't my intention! I find a lot of inspiration in your work and am so glad you're willing to share.
When I saw this, I was researching concrete stain. This is on the Scofield site under Theme Park projects. I have some samples of their stain but have not tried it yet. The colors I got are not recommended for outdoors(didn't know that when I got them)so I'm waiting for a project that will stay covered. I did not see the artist's name but the tree is 15-stories high and called the Tree of Life.

Found it! Very cool. I like the leaf 'fossils', such great colour & detail.

I found this info on the Tree Of Life and thought it was quite interesting:

- This tree is one of the few artificial trees among over 4 million living plants at Disney's Animal Kingdom®.
- Ten artists and three Imagineers worked full-time for 18 months to create the 325 animal carvings on The Tree of Life.
- The Tree of Life is topped with more than 103,000 translucent, five-shades-of-green leaves that were individually placed and actually blow in the wind.

'Imagineers' - I like that. They sound like over-acheiving Tufaneers.

Let us know how the stains work for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tree of Life

GardenChicken,
Wow,really impressive work. I just Love all your projects! Your sculpting talent is really something. Hope to continue to see more of your creations here. Thanks for sharing, you're an inspiration to us all.

Sandy

Garden Chicken- How about that for a tufa Community Project? LOL
Thanks for the link.

That tree is so cool! Since I am continuing on my faux bois streak, I am trying to fine tune and experiment with diferent finishes. Sure would love to know how they created this finish. Any ideas on what colors they used? Stains and/or colorants?
David

David,

Here's the original link, it looks like they talk about which 'system' they used to achieve the effect.

-GC

Here is a link that might be useful: Scofield

At the place that carries the Scofield stains, the guy told me they recommend spraying the color on big projects with one of those chemical sprayers you buy at any hardware store. He said most brands can be diluted with water and/or colors can be mixed with each other or be layered.
I have found the stains fun to play with. But I have not yet tried the acid stains, like Scofield's.

Tried to get more substatial info on the particualr stains that were used to make the Tree of Life. Customer service didn't know what I was talking about and gave me the number of the CA sales rep who never returned my call. Did anyone else get do any research into this? As I am on a Faux bois bent, I wanted to try and re-produce the effect achieved on that Tree. I'll try again, but if anyone can re-direct please chime in. On the Scofield site it says what product they used but not the specific combo. Do you think that they would be reluctant to share the info?
G.B.

It doesn't hurt to ask. I would think they would be glad to help out a potential customer. You could always send an email to them if you don't want to call. However, I have been told that Scofield is a very friendly company by someone who took technique classes from them.

Garden Chicken, your mushrooms are beautiful. Can you fill us in on how you made them? I have been looking for mushrooms that look like toadstools for years but all I've ever seen are the kind that look like upsidedown bowls on sticks, or European posts which they used to hitch horses. I love yours. They look like the toadstools in 'Sleeping Beauty' and other fairytales. Please fill us in. Thanks, Mandy

Mandy,

I made the mushrooms a looong time ago, and as far as I can remember...
For the caps I just 'mounded' some tufa into the basic shape, and then after it set up I carved them to look like... well... mushroom caps.
For the stems I rigged up a stand to hold a piece of rebar basically vertical, then packed tufa around it into a basic 'stem' shape.
Again, once the tufa set, I carved them to look like... stems.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I love mushroom caps stuffed with cheese.

~GardenChicken

Back to the top.

can ya'll recommend some how to books on faux bois or any other sources you found helpful? Thanks

yvonneloke, hope you're still around to read this...

It seems that there's not really a lot of books written about the faux bois art. It seems to be one of highly guarded skills. But there are several great exaamples in this forum, or at least there was, and I think they all had their own little ways to do it. Hopefully Tango will see this and give you some information because he does it professionally. If he doesn't see this, you might want to take a look at his photo album under "My Page" under one of his posts and maybe try emailing him.

Well, I'm anxious to see the photos of the projects and all I get is the "404-not found" error! Have the links been up too long and gotten removed?

Anna

Maybe we can persuade Garden Chicken to relink. I just saw that yvonneloke wasn't answered is why I posted to it.

Please, please please Garden Chicken!!!!

Sorry about that... the server that was hosting my pics had a meltdown apparently beyond repair...

yvonneloke emailed me with the same question, and I answered basically the same way you did HowieDoin...
How is tango coming along with that Faux Bois book, hmmmm???

Anyway, such as it is, here's a revised version of the link with some new goodies (fingers crossed hoping this works!).

Here is a link that might be useful: GardenChicken tufa

This is my first visit to this forum and I'm hooked now that I've seen your photos! Holy cow! I hope my boss doesn't realize I've been learning about tufa all morning instead of working. :)

My poor hubby is not going to get a moment's rest until I figure out how to make path lights out of this stuff. Thank you to everyone for posting info!

GC,

Your things are beautiful! I especially love the various spheres. How did you make them? Did you carve them freehand?
Mabel in Maine

As my gram would say... BEAUTYFUL!! What wonderful projects, thanks for sharing them!!

B

Wow - those are all phenomenal! I love the stepping stones, balls, and mushrooms especially!

Finally, this lurker has been inspired to speak up. I'm pretty new to this, although I did make a bird bath out of tufa a few years ago, but I don't know what I did wrong, it was very crumbly and every time I touch it, pieces of it fall off. Too much peat and vermiculite and not enough concrete, I think. Garden Chicken, what recipe did you use for your mushrooms and how long did you wait before you carved them. Also, what did you used to carve them with? They would look sweet in my woodland garden. Very impressive work!!

Thanks everyone for the kind comments, it's been a while since I looked at this thread!!

serenity, I understand totally what you mean about crumbling tufa, I chalked it up to good cement gone bad, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

As for the recipe, well, it was a very long time ago that I made the 'lighted' mushrooms, and I think it was probably just a basic tufa mix of 2:1:1 - peat, sand & portland (don't quote me on that!). The other (smaller looking) mushrooms had more peat, 3 parts I think. They are considerably more spotty looking. I was concerned they weren't going to harden but finally did, it just took longer than usual.

As for the carving, I have a really old wood rasp that I use for most of my carving (it's probably some valuable antique that would bring hundreds on e-bay, lol) and an old butter knife. Nothing too fancy or radical! I love the carving part, very satisfying for me.

Hope that helps!
~GC

Garden Chicken,
Your work is very nice. thank you for sharing pictures and recipes. It is often what helps others continue.
The photo site you have is clean and stylized hilighting your work.
Happy casting and thankyou again,
Dena

Garden Chicken,
I am very interested in making tufa mushrooms for my garden, as well as concrete/tufa faux bois. It is now July 2007, and the last post on this thread was 2005, and I can't pull up any of your photos. Can you re-post them? There are very few resources for this kind of work.

I just sent you an email, I am now finding this old post in 2013. Please repost with current links for pictures. newbie