Mini Food: Summer Braai (BBQ) Prt 2

So this is the second part of this project. The first part I uploaded yesterday and it can be found here: http://whatsannadoingtoday.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/mini-food-summer-braai-bbq-prt-1.html

Right, let's get right into it. On the 'menu' for today is the pap en mielies (which is basically a porridge made from maize meal, in this case with corn kernels mixed through it), Chicken sosaties (basically kebabs), potato salad, and corn on the cob. 

Let's start with the pap:

This is a really basic process, and because it is so simple, there really isn't much to show you in the way of step by step photos, but I'll do my best.

I started by pressing a lump of off white clay into the bowl I had made for it. For the texturing I used my toothbrush as well as a metal brush (the harder bristles make for a slightly different look).

I basically just attacked the clay with the afore mentioned tools until I was satisfies that it looked like pap.

 For the bits of corn that is in the pap, I took some yellow clay, rolled out a thin log and actually baked this before cutting it into tiny pieces. 

Baking the yellow clay before hand allowed mer to be able to press the 'corn' into the pap without losing the shape of the 'corn' or distorting the texture of the 'pap'.

 Once I had obtained a generous sprinkling of the yellow through the white, I baked the whole lot and, after it cooled, I sealed the whole lot with a matte glaze.

And there it is, ready to serve.

Next up are the Sosaties:

 I started by taking a toothpick and, with the help of my trusty craft knife cut it into thin little strips of wood.

 For the chicken cubes, I took some tan clay, mixed that with a bit white to get the right colour. I rolled this out into a sheet and chopped the whole lot up into cubes of roughly the same size. 

I wasn't too worried about them being uneven.

For a bit of colour in the kebabs, I added some red and green clay. In my mind the represent red and green peppers, but I guess that its up to interpretation as they are basically just these little circles. (I forgot the take a photo of the red, but it was the exact same process)

 Ready to start building up the sosaties.

 All I did was add the individual pieces one at a time, keeping the same pattern for all six of the kebabs I made. Two pices of 'chicken' one 'red pepper', two more bits of 'chicken', a "green pepper" and lastly two more pieces of 'chicken'.

 After I baked them I applied some soft pastels at random, using a wet brush. I also sealed the lot with a matte glaze again.

Next is the potato salad:

(Yes this is the same photo as the 'chicken cubes', I lost the one for chicken, but as you can see they were interchangeable.)

I took an off white clay and cubed it (like with the chicken).

 I put a generous amount of TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpy) at the bottom of my dish, and started arranging the 'potato' in it.

 All done. Next, I covered the while lot with TLS that was coloured slightly with some white pastels (I didn't want the colour to be solid, so I just mixed in a tiny bit if powdered pastel).

 For the garnish (let's call it parsley), I took a little bit of green clay and rolled out a thin sheet which I baked.

With the help of my blade, I chopped this into tiny little flakes and sprinkled it into the uncured TLS.

Ready to be baked.

After I baked it and allowed it to cool I sealed the 'potato salad' part with a gloss-, and the rest with a matte-glaze.

The last thing I made was some corn on the cob. 

I know that there are most likely easier and quicker ways to do this, but for myself, I couldn't achieve the look I wanted any other way.
Here's what I did:
I started by encasing the tip id a toothpick with a bit of yellow clay and then (this was the hard/tedious part,) added the individual kernels, one at a time.

 I ended up working on these for quite a while as you can well imagine.

 However, the end result was well worth the effort, I think.

 Almost done...

This is the colour range in my soft pastels that I used to colour the corn cobs before baking.

After I baked it, I trimmed off the excess bits of wood and covered it with a tiny bit of the corn yellow mixed with white to make it slightly paler.

I also added some darker shades of soft pastel (brown) as these were being cooked on the BBQ.

The table and napkin holder:

 These were both sort of last minute additions to the project.
For the table I used some balsa wood and cut four equal strips and glied them together in an "X" shape.

The table top is also balsa wood, but this was a pre-cut piece and I decided to use it as is. In hindsight I should have made the table top a little bit bigger, but never mind.
Once my "X"s were dry, I glued them to the table top and left the whole lot to dry over night.

 The napkin holder was another unplanned addition, but I really like it.
To make it, I just took a but of the same wire that I used for the grill and bent it into the shape that you see in the photo.
Quite accidentally, the part where the two ends of the wire meets is hidden in the photo.

For the actual napkins, I took a tissue and folded it as many times as I could.

 I then placed the folded end into the holder and trimmed off the excess (you can see all the cut-offs in the back ground.

And that's that. 

Oh wait, one last thing. My tongs.

I once again used the metal from a trusty tea light candle.

 I flattened it out and sketched a rough template on the metal using my needle tool. 

I cut this out and shaped it using my dotting tool.

 When I was happy with the shape of them, I added some black clay for the handles and baked them.

If you look closely, you can see them hanging off the side of the BBQ.

And that is all there is to it.

 

Well I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did. 

That is all I have for you today, so now I am off to go and work on something else.

Until next time,

ACL.