Side Projects.

I like making food just as much as I like making models (I've often thought there were some similarities. Chopping for example). At some point, some time ago, I decided to make a model of a sandwich. Cheese salad: a nice slice of tomato, a nice slice of cucumber, a crisp leaf of lettuce, cheese (perhaps Jarlsberg), all on a nice seedy slice of bread.

This is something that sat around for a while, until spotted by Suzie, of Trish and Jacket. Trish and Jacket is an excellent online shop, specialising in all sorts of wonderfully peculiar things - jewellery, accessories and the like. Trish and Jacket took to this sandwich model, and persuaded me to get it finished to a point that it is now available as a model kit to purchase, and has evolved into a range of jewellery too.

Finch & Fouracre's Cardboard Picnic is available from our BigCartel shop, though not through the F&F website, so this is the only place you can buy it at the moment, priced at a bargainous £8.00.

There's more about the jewellery on Trish and Jacket's website. The jewellery is a collaborative effort - I make the sandwich components, which are transfers on wood, and then T&J make them up into sandwich necklaces (cheese salad or BLT) and badges (tomato or cucumber).

One final thing - since this post is titled 'Side Projects' I thought I'd add a sneak peek of a drawing I'm working on.

Can you tell where it is? 

In praise of paper

When I meet new people, and I'm asked what I do, the follow-up question usually is "what do you make the models out of? Paper? Balsa?" Well, most of the time it's plastics and timber, for the architectural work at least. The model kits are mainly made from thick card (although many people mistake the browned, laser cut edges for timber), except for those made of metal. I use these materials as they are hardwearing, and can be treated in lots of ways for different finishes. However, I rarely use paper, which is a shame in a way, although it's usually unsuitable for the models I make.

Paper has amazing qualities, being at once delicate and structural, having the ability to take the intricacies of a both craft knife and pen or pencil. An art or architecture school favourite is making the tallest/strongest/longest structure from a single sheet of paper - I've seen a photo of my dad in his college days standing on a chair to balance a brick atop a structure made of a sheet of A1 paper. At the same time, it's the first material we often turn to when planning a new project, or even just writing a shopping list.

I'm pretty sure I'll have mentioned this artist before, but the work of Peter Callesen is a fantastic example of what can be done with a single sheet of paper. Usually, there's not a mark on the paper, just the cuts, and what at first can appear simple must in reality take massive amounts of planning and attempts to get it right.

I was recently told of Popupology, which is a more familiar type of paper model, but incredible with it too. Bearing in mind that each design has to be able to fold flat, then re-construct itself without assistance, I'm amazed at how beautiful these cards are, and how accurate they are to the buildings they represent.

The workshop I ran at the Merchant City Festival at the end of July was a simple exercise of cutting shapes out of thin card, and slotting them together to make representations of the buildings of the Merchant City. While nowhere near as intricate or structurally sound as the two examples above, it's a great place to start exploring modelmaking and 3D forms (photos coming soon!). It would definitely be nice to do more of this type of thing.

If you fancy a crack at making something out of paper at home, why not try the Model Me Real models we produced, available to download from the F&F website?

news and new products

Gosh, it's certainly been a while since I updated the ole blog. I'm just back from my holidays (yes, I had a lovely time, thanks), and thought there was a couple of things that I should fill you in on. But where to start...?! First off, the latest F&F model kit was released at the start of June. Very early on in the life of our model kits, we started selling them through the Red Door Gallery on Victoria St in Edinburgh. Ever since, we've been asked when we'll be producing an Edinburgh model kit, and I'm happy to announce that the time has finally come!

The Edinburgh Old Town model kit stands at 20cm high, and is modelled on the 16th and 17th century found around the High St and Grassmarket in Edinburgh. Like all our model kits, it comes with pre-cut pieces, and has everything you need to build your own miniaturised memento of the capital. You can get hold of one

here

, and of course, the price includes free worldwide postage.

 In addition to that new model, there's four (count 'em... FOUR!) new models produced in collaboration with Another Studio, who we worked with to produce Plantini. The MONUmini series celebrates some of London's most striking and iconic architecture.

The collection includes Tower Bridge (above), the Barbican Tower, the Battersea Power Station and the Post Office tower. Each one comes on a single sheet of stainless steel, and folds together to produce a perfect replica of the building. The kit comes flat packed with an envelope and short history of the building. Choose your favourite or collect them all! They are priced at £15 each, and are available at

www.another-studio.com

.

I've also got a couple of projects that I finished just before going away that I'll share with you shortly (a model of a tractor showroom, and a model kit commissioned by Strathclyde Uni), but for now the final piece of news is that you can join me for a

modelmaking workshop as part of the Merchant City Festival

this Saturday at South Block (60 Osbourne St, Glasgow) between 1 & 3pm. I hope to see you there!