Inside Out…

It is funny, just a few days after finishing for Christmas and the creative mojo is already creeping back. I found myself enjoying an extended coffee break, Labrador snoring beside me, looking through a book. Not just any book, but one by the Industrial Railway Society on the railway system at Barnbough. Within its pages a wonderful photo (below left) particularly caught my attention and fired my imagination...

That photo... from inside out...

Like you, I have seen wonderfully evocative models of railway engine sheds - modern, steam, industrial, UK or US, external views, internal views, sometimes even both...  What if I designed a trinket, a cameo in the purest of senses, a curiosity - the ability to be inside, looking out to a detailed and realistic scene beyond the dark confines of the shed.

However, equally, it might be useful to be outside too, so a two sided box with cameo lighting as the start. Add LED lighting inside the shed, and a yard lamp or two and we have the option of night and day, inside or out...

A friend asked 'what scale are you thinking?' and I reflected that I hadn't actually considered that... I think that this idea would work in O, OO or N. Not prizes for guessing my preference, and so a test of the concept was knocked up in brown paper, creation fuelled by the both the inspiration and the speed at which an idea can be explored when working with such simple, honest materials.

This whole process was book ended by being un-plugged. The photo in the book, enjoyed on the sofa led to the digital sketch, but then back to reality working in tangible materials to realise the scheme, to check dimensions, play with angles and to study the form. Working away from digital, in fact as far as to plug the phone into the stereo to listen to the radio making sure I wasn't distracted by the urge to check a detail or look up some such on the internet. 

Instead, I considered, I measured, I sketched and most of all enjoyed the process. 

Recharging in every sense.

(the phone too, on its docking station!). 

So what are we looking at? 

About A5 in size this little shed scene can live around the workshop and be both a muse for photography experiments as well as being part of the Cwmbach story... 

I'm building the screens and loading area - but presumably the locomotives are stabled somewhere... 

I mentioned a new arrival - an EFE Austerity will join the fleet, suitably weathered it will lend some steam muscle to the stable - and mean I can keep my Grandpa's original (pictured here) pristine in the display cabinet. 

So yes, this little scheme will be realised. The track will not be powered. The box will be constructed in foam board for speed, and I hope to progress in the next two weeks - and share the journey here. Until next time, more soon...

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