Bear Creek: Green all over...

This weekend I've really enjoyed some 'down time' and have focused on the 'other half' of Bear Creek that needed to move from bare earth to a basic layering of green...

I'm not talking about the old days where we'd paint on a watered down 50/50 mix of PVA/Water/Fairy Liquid (other brands are available!) and scatter Woodland Scenics ground foam on to our basic landforms... perhaps, adding some coarse foam secured with more of the same applied by an eye dropper. No the world has come on a long way with scenery... I'd already applied a good foundation of real earth, so this exercise was letting the grass grow. First step? Dig out all my materials and remove the trees...

Of course things do green up under trees, but not as much, so cautious of this I used the Peco basing cement (a dilute matt medium I think) sparingly around each hole in the baseboard... later sprinkling on some tea and securing with Scenic cement (much runnier matt medium). I have such a range of static grasses these days I just mix what feels right. Starting with shorter lengths at first, to get a decent coverage - in this case 1mm winter and 2mm autumn from Peco I think, mixed in with some summer green and straw 2mm fibres from Greenscenes. I then use a lacquer spray and some 'masks' (cut holes in some paper to make a random pattern) and begin to add some longer 4.5mm fibres (usually Mini-natur fall). I teased out some Woodland Scenics foliage securing this with a little scenic cement, sprayed with lacquer and then sprinkled with some Green Scenes foliage ground foam - building this up in places several layers thick, before finishing with some postiche (fake hair) and more ground foam. If uni look at the landscape as you walk around you begin to notice how grass grows in different lengths and takes on different colours depending on whether it's wet, dry, steep, or flat. Using that in built knowledge I began to use the masks to add some longer 6mm Mini-natur winter fibres, almost straw like, to create longer grass.

Over a coffee I dug into my Gordon Gravett books looking for inspiration on how to 'blend' in tree trunks to the ground, and other scenic ideas... alas no immediate answers, and one for another day but it did give me some good ideas around log piles. As for the trunk blending, I'm going to try the same bark mix I use on wire armatures - and then paint and blend it in by hand.

Using a smaller brush, and sticking with the 2mm and 1mm fibres, I added some grass to the lighter rail, which has really helped tie the look of the track and ballast together. You might notice some timber debris as well, which is bits of tea from a Yorkshire Tea bag, scale bark perhaps?

So this is where things stand (above and top), the scene is beginning to come together just as I had hoped, and although lacking in detail, the basic scenery is probably good enough now to work on the finer points. I'd like to add a pile of old ties and rusting rail, switch stands and a water tank - as well as look at making some tree stumps. For now though I've enjoyed working on the layout again, after a week of work, and taking photos like this...

...which to me are the reason I'm building this layout - trying to evoke an emotional connection to my Dad's passion for logging railroads, connecting that to my own evolving interest and blending the old with the new, practicing new skills and getting excited about scenery including the track. Don't think I'm aiming for rivet counter realism here, far from it, I'm aiming for a warm fuzzy feeling and an enjoyment from creating scenes like this that resonate with me, and hopefully with others. Until next time, more soon...