Maaaaagic Mushrooms !!

Here we are then, magic mushrooms for in your garden pots.

 We started with a length of fencing wire about as long as my hand. I made a loop with a pair of pliers for all the students at the top of the wire so that it will not poke through the mushroom cap. 

The next step is to form a polymer ball around the loop of the wire, roughly about 5 cm or so in diameter.

Then we formed a stem connecting to the base of the ball by wrapping the wire with polymer clay and smoothing over the joins. I think a wider base looks more convincing if you are going for realism, but mushroom stems come in all shapes and sizes. There should be wire sticking out the bottom so you can poke it into the ground.(and hang it upside down in a pan in the oven!)

Next we rolled a 5 mm thick disc of clay that covered the palm of my hand. Make sure you make it thick enough or the cap will droop too much.

Finally the fun bit, you can pinch a skirt on the stem and make little balls to form the spots on the cap. I made marks in the underside to look like the gills of a real mushroom, scoring with a sharp clay tool.

After you are satisfied with the overall look you can fire it in the oven according to manufacturers directions. We used Sculpey so I cooked it for 25 minutes at 130 degrees Celsius. I hung it upside down in a stock pot (all metal, watch out for plastic handles) from the base wire curled around another piece of wire suspended over the pot. This way not of the mushroom has to rest on any of its uncooked surfaces.

And then we painted! I used acrylics, layering the colours for the cap. For the base I watered the paint down and rubbed it back off, this leaves paint in the scored sections. The base was a straight burnt umber watered down and the cap has purples, reds and blues in various layers. 

To make it more lasting I am varnishing with a matte sealer. I think it is best if you don't stick them in the direct outside kind of weather conditions, maybe in a pot on your patio?