Famous Pies ala LoRyn!

So, I know that all of you read the Santa Fe New Mexican, and that you already saw this photo of Loryn working on some ginormous pies.

If you didn't, you can read the article online by clicking here.

Here's a little more info about the pies.  These pies are a joint effort by many a props crafter. First of all, Mana Butt, shopper extraordinaire bought two vintage pie tins.  Then, our apprentices Oona (see the post on Sugared Pansy Cake ala Oona) and Ellie (see Cherries Cake ala Ellie) carved bead foam into the shapes of the pies. Aimee Plant (Chickens Ala Aimee) showed Ellie and Oona to make a pastry like crust by layering tissue paper and flex glue. Then, Loryn Williams (or LoRyn, if you read the article) painted the pies.

See, Collaboration!

Read more

Casting Call

Today on the Fake-n-Bake blog, I'm bringing you a casting project. This is a piece that I just did for the upcoming production of 'Faust' that I'm working on. This little decoration will eventually be part of a mirror stand in a jeweler's window.

*Remember, when using any chemicals, to use the proper safety equipment. Casting materials can be really, really bad for you if used without the proper protection.*

The first step was to draw out what I wanted to build, including the piece that I would sculpt and cast, in full scale.  Once that was done, I made a copy of the drawing and taped it to a piece of plywood to use as a sculpting surface.

I used modeling clay to sculpt the piece, with beads added for certain details. Once the sculpting was complete, I built a plywood frame around it to function as a mold box.

I sealed the box and the clay with clear spray shellac. This is partly out of habit (sulphur clays inhibit urethane rubber cure, and I often use urethane) and partly just too add a layer between the mold and the positive.  I used Tempo 30 silicone to make the mold.  I haven't used this much, but it worked very well.  To mix this product, you measure portions of catalyst and silicone together by weight, stir THOROUGHLY, pour, and allow to set overnight.

Once the silicone had set, I demolded by removing the sides of the mold box, and peeling the mold off of the positive.  To cast the piece, I used universal mold release before pouring two part resin into the mold. It's always important to have a level casting surface, but especially when the piece is so thin like this.  Once the piece came out of the mold, it was easy to trim away any excess bits of resin, and smooth any flaws.  The resin will stay soft until it fully cures, so if I had wanted to, I could have bent it to fit around a round surface. 

TA-DA! Here it is.  I'll try to post some finished photos when the whole prop is done.

Happy Propping!

Read more

More Fridge Dressing

Here are a few more of the goodies from the Salesman fridge.

 Jam. These were made by putting tinted hot pour vinyl into vintage jam jars.

Pot Roast. This is repurposed from an old food prop I did a while back.  It's chunks of upholstery foam, coated with flex glue, then painted with acrylics.  It is garnished with micro-foam onions (one side sprayed red), hot pour vinyl gravy, hot pour vinyl onions (apparently, these people like onions), and silk foliage herbs. It is served on a bed of cotton batting mashed potatoes.

Tuna Noodle Casserole. Just like in the TV dinner! Real noodles, saw dust, flex glue, and mardi-gras bead peas. Yum!

Read more

Summertiiiiiiiime, and the living is anything but easy.

Hey all, as you may have noticed, I haven't put up a post in a few weeks. Well, it's time for my annual summertime excuse. In the summers, I spend the little time that I am not working in the Opera prop shop either gorging myself on green chile, or watching the rodeo. Now, most of you theater folks are off contract anyway, and shouldn't really be reading about props in your free time, so you may not even notice that the posts are slightly more sparse.  So, here's the deal. I will try to get in a post a week- but more likely I'll be doing once every two weeks. Now, if you have a beautiful food prop that you've been dying to send me (why haven't you?), this would be a great time to send it. The summer is my favorite time to do guest blog entries. So, I hope you all have a good summer, I'll blog as much as I can, and I'll see y'all back here real soon.

Read more

Smo-kay Cheese Spread

Materials: Hummus, Food Coloring, A Kick-Ass Graphics Artist

Okay, this is yet another post in which the graphic prop artist outshines the food props artist. In this case, the artist doing the outshining is Jill Lyons, the very talented and skilled artisan who does paper props and props painting here at the Rep.  It was Jill who did the research on the cheese spread and Jill who made the labels- I just put some hummus in the jar.

The hummus was an actor request. For some reason, he didn't feel like making a greasy, fattening cheese spread sandwich every night. He asked for hummus, and we all thought that it was a fine idea. We bought plain hummus, and used red and yellow food coloring to make it the delightful smoky color you see here.

Ta-da!

Read more

Far Away Fridge Food in Five Minutes

The healthiest story ever told, apparently.

Alright, so I'm dressing a fridge for "Death of a Salesman" (Arthur Miller....swoon) that is going to be open for all of 15 seconds- if that.  Now, the fridge should look stocked, and the dressing should look good, but there's no point spending an inordinate amount of time on a prop that will barely be noticeable.  Here are two of the quickies that we used to dress the fridge.

I picked Phil's Dairy because my brother is named Phil, and he is awesome.

Cream
How did I make this lovely bottle of cream in less than five minutes? Let me tell you! I pulled a cream bottle and pog top from stock. I filled the bottle with salt. I glued the top on. WAH-LAH!*

I can't believe it's not butter!

Butter
Well, this photo is pretty self explanatory. I cut a piece of yellow insulation foam and put it into a butter dish. Yup.

So, as you can see, this is another post that just highlights my belief that, sometimes, the packaging is the most important part of making fake food look convincing. Salt in a bowl doesn't look like milk, and a chunk of yellow foam on a chair wouldn't look like butter. In the right context, however, sometimes all we need is that little nudge to get our brains where they need to go, and often, the simplest solution is the best. Happy Propping!




*Yeah, I misspelled it on purpose, it's funny.

Read more

Chickens ala Aimee, or the funniest food prop I've ever seen.

 Materials: Utility Fabric, Pinto Beans, Poly fill, Pretzels (optional), Plastic Bags.

This week's project comes to you from my good friend, Aimee Plant, who is a free lance propster in and about Chicago.  For a production of 'Milk, Milk, Lemonade' by Pavement Group, Aimee had to make a slew of raw chickens. The shtick is that chickens go into the processing machine and, after a poof of feathers, processed, bagged chickens come out.  According to Aimee, one of the chickens to meet her untimely fate is also the best friend of the human protagonist- and played by an actress in chicken costume. For her processing, Aimee made a large, turkey sized chicken.

The chickens are soft sculpture- and made from a fabric called Utility Fabric. Aimee wishes it were more specifically named, but she believes that it is used to cover changing tables and other surfaces that need to be wipeable.  The stuffing is a mixture of poly fill and pinto beans (for heft) which are very common and useful stuffing choices.

First, Aimee made a prototype out of muslin, to make sure her size and shape were correct.

Once she had determined that she was on the right track, she cut her pieces out of the fabric.

Then she sewed them together and stuffed them while she enjoyed a delicious snack of pretzels.

Filling for chickens and tummy.

Pile of chicken parts.

Then, she pieced the chicken parts together into whole chickens.

Possibly the funniest food prop I have ever seen. 

Then bagged them.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I LOVE THEM.

If you've seen a funnier food prop- send me a picture!

Read more

Cherry Pie ala Kathleen

 

This awesome work of faux pastry was made by Kathleen Ballos, a young propster and one of our neighbors to the north.  I'll let her tell you about it.

Katleen writes;

"The cherry pie was something I just something I made at home for fun because I didn't have a job at the time. That being said, I used things that were affordable and very non-toxic (it was too cold to work outside for ventilation). I used salt dough for the pastry - I made the bottom layer like a normal pie (but cut a slice out and put it on a separate pie plate to bake) and covered the bottom with dried beans and foil, then arranged the lattice on top (I also cut a slice of the lattice and placed it on top of foil on the other pie plate).

After it was baked, I cut styrofoam to fit both the large pie and the slice and used Crayola Model Magic to form the cherry filling over the styrofoam. While I was doing it, I could tell that the foaminess of the model magic wasn't going to be the most accurate way to recreate the cherry filling, but using a tiny bit of water to smooth the edges of the cherries helped a bit. However, when it dried little crevices formed, but were hidden by paint and the lattice. On the plus side, the model magic allowed the filling to stay light-weight.

The lattice was a bit tricky - when I baked it, I didn't think to press the intersections together or to use water to help strengthen them, so it was pretty fragile. The salt dough reacted alright to hot glue, but it wasn't very strong. Finally, I painted the cherry filling and the shell, then glued the layers together."

Delightful!  If you'd like to see more of Kathleen's craft work, you can visit her Flickr page here.

Read more

Bonus Post- Coke Bottles

Read more

Hot Pour Vinyl Fishies

Materials:  Hot Pour Vinyl, Plaster, Vaseline, Acrylic Paints, Mold Box (wood or other), Modeling Clay
 
The mold for these herring was made for our production of 'The 39 Steps', by our clever and hilarious intern, Jess Smith, with guidance from yours truly.

Intern shown actual size.

 It is a simple two part plaster mold made from a fake fish that we had in stock.  See! Casting and faux foodstuffs in one convenient post!

The Original.

The first thing that Jess did was to determine where the seam of the mold wanted to be. With a symmetrical piece like a fish, this is a pretty easy task, especially when the fish you are using is a cast piece that already has a seam!  Using a wooden mold box, Jess built up clay around one side of the fish, taking up the space that one half of the mold would eventually fill.  Before applying a release agent, she built up clay near the mouth to form a pour spout, and carved a trough with a carving tool to act as a registration.  (A registration is made to keep the two pieces of the mold in the correct alignment.)  Once the clay dam was complete, Jess used petroleum jelly (good ol' Vaseline) to coat the clay dam, the wooden sides of the box, and the fish. This acted as a release agent so that the plaster would not stick to any of the surfaces and prevent the mold from being removed.  Jess then poured the plaster into the first side of the mold, and allowed it to cure.

Here you can see the first half of the mold and the clay dam that has been removed.

Once the plaster set, Jess removed the whole thing from the mold box (some disassembly required), flipped it, and settled in back into the mold box, plaster side down. She then removed the clay dam, built the second half of the pour spout, and gave the whole shebang another coat of petroleum jelly before pouring side two.  Once side two was poured, she removed the mold from the box, removed the fish from the mold, and gave both pieces of the mold a good scrubbing to remove the release agent.

See the registration trough/ridge?

The next step was to pour the castings.  We used pigmented hot pour vinyl to do this (see last weeks post here).  After securing the mold halves together, Jess heated the vinyl until it melted, and poured it into the mold.  The vinyl itself isn't sticky when it's dry, so no release agent was needed.  Then, once the vinyl had cooled, we popped it out of the mold, trimmed the sprue from the pour spout and painted the fishies silver with acrylic paint.  We did try to brush silver bronzing powder into the mold before casting, and while it looked good, the powder came off on our hands too easily when handling the herring- so we went with the paint instead.

The best thing about these fishies is their floppy quality.

Read more

Thanks for your patience!

Hey all, you may have noticed that I haven't posted yet this week. Please accept my apologies. There is a lot of bad, bad business going down in my home state right now (as well as with my car) and it has had me a bit distracted.  Not a good excuse? Maybe, but it's the one I have. And don't worry, I'll put up that post on Hot Pour Fishies tomorrow, cross my heart. Happy Propping to all, and peace and safety to all of the people in the world right now who need it.
-Anna

Read more

Materials Monday- Hot Pour Vinyl



Beef in Hot Pour Vinyl Gravy.

Hot pour vinyl! If you've been a faithful follower of this blog, you've probably noticed that I like to use a product called Hot Pour Vinyl on a lot of my food products. You also probably need to get out more. It's one of my favorite products because of it's translucency and shine- you can get really faithful representations of things like gravy, pie filling and cheese sauce. It's also nice and jiggly.
Hot pour vinyl is the same stuff that fake worm fishing lures are made out of. It comes in a liquid form, in clear or white, and is set by heating it to 350 Degrees, and then cooling it. It can be poured into a mold, or drizzled on top of fake food as a sauce, or anything else that your heart desires. I’ve used it in plaster molds, and I believe it can also be poured into silicone or urethane molds as well, though I have no experience with that. It can be re-melted and reused many times, you can put sawdust or other texturizers in it for a chunkier look if you wish.

You can buy plastic pigments to dye it, and they’re available in a wide range of colors. I’ve had mixed luck with painting it with acrylic, though I know the Guthrie had good luck using acrylic paint on some cast meat for a butcher shop scene this season.   I think the luck has to do with how well you set the stuff, if it isn't heated fully before cooling, it seems not to work quite as well.

The downside is that it’s hard to get it to stick to anything, and that it can leach some oily residue over time- so it doesn’t hold up real well in our warm and muggy basement prop storage. The best part is that it is shiny and translucent- so you can make very convincing sauces with it and jiggly, so you can make hilarious jiggly food with it.

The manufacturer recommends heating it in an oil double boiler, but as that sounds terrifying to me (another prop shop I know of had a spill with theirs, ick), and I usually mix mine in small batches, I just do it over low(gradually increasing) heat, and stir constantly. It’s pretty stinky, so better to do it in a ventilated area.

We buy ours here:
Burman Industries (search for Hot Pour)
and you can buy the pigments (M-F plastic color, it’s called) that we use here:
Fishing World- Plastic Pigments
(though I do not have personal experience with this company)


I'll post a step by step next week on some hot pour fishies, but in the mean time, here are some things I've done with the hot pour. Happy Propping!



Leftover cheese on platter.




Cabbage Pie



"Something Brown made of Cabbage"





Read more

Mr. Laurel's Meat Pies

In this season's production of 'Laurel and Hardy,' Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy had to chow down on a plate of meat pies. Well, if your goal is to ask your actor to eat something greasy, crumbly, messy, and high calorie every night, then a meat pie is right up your alley! Your actor can pack on the pounds and your wardrobe staff can start scraping grease. Now, if you don't want your poor performers and costumers to hate the meat pie bit, you can always sub in these delightful meat free pies.  This is one of my shortest posts ever, because these pies are really, really easy to make. Here we go:

Step 1) Buy some of that pastry dough in a tube.
Step 2) Make it into pie shapes.
Step 3) Bake it. (Bake it at the recommended temperature until it looks golden brown.)

Ta-da!  We opted to make a massive batch during tech, freeze them, and re-thaw them a few at a time- and it seemed to work beautifully. I won't claim that the calories issue was completely solved, but it sure beat a pocket of ground beef every night. Also, our savvy director blocked the scene so that only two of the pies were eaten each night. These two edible pies sat atop a towering pyramid of foam meat pies, so the joke still had its punch.

That's it! There you go! Meatless Meat pies! Easy as.....yup, pie.

Happy Propping!

Read more

Materials Monday- Jaxsan

So, today I'd like to do a little rave about one of my all time favorite products, Jaxsan 600. Before I start this article, I should mention that I am in no way affiliated with the fine people at Plastics Coating Corporation, I just love their stuff!   If you've spent any time around me in a prop shop, you've probably heard me refer to Jaxsan as 'the magic prop goo' or constantly suggest it for every type of project imaginable.  What makes it so great you say? Well, let me tell you!

Within this bucket lies magic beyond your imagination! Well, actually,magic in direct proportion to your imagination. Still, not too shabby.

 Jaxsan is a great coating. It can be troweled or brushed on (there is also a spray grade, but I haven't used that one yet.) You can thin it with water, tint it (with acrylic, Cal-Tints, etc.), and mix in textural materials like sawdust.  It will coat wood, metal, fabric, foam rubber, and insulation foam. When it dries (air cure) it is strong, flexible, waterproof, fire resistant, and paintable.  If you stipple it on, paint it black, and then hit the points with silver Rub n' Buff, it looks like cast iron. If you schmooey it onto microfoam and paint it, it looks like sliced meat (see the ham and beef photos below.)

Now, there are a few downsides. The stuff isn't cheap, but for small applications it goes a long way. Also, if you're trying to get a smooth finish, this might not be the stuff for you. It's got some texture on it's own, and you're not going to get a satiny finish with it. Once it's dry there's no sanding or carving possible.

Now, as Levar Burton used to say on 'Reading Rainbow,' you don't have to take my word for it. Laura Salvaggio over at Theater Helper has posted a good overview of Jaxsan 600. Click here to read it.
Also, the fine folks at Plastics Coating Corporation have a known history of sending samples to theater professionals.  They've figured out that we use it, even if they aren't entirely sure what we do with it.  You can visit their website by clicking here.

Where to buy it?  Well, you can buy it directly from the company, you can buy it from RoseBrand, or you can look around online- a few other places do carry it.

I have some examples of Jaxsan use in my fake food work below (you can click on the caption to see the full post if you like):

Fauxsciutto

Strawberry Cream Cake ala JT

Sugared Pansy Cake ala Oona

Hammy Sammies

Roast Beef

 So how about you? What do you use Jaxsan for? Send photos!!!!  If I like the photos, I'll post them, and you can have the prestige of having your work displayed on a blog that is read by tens of people daily!

Happy Propping!

Read more

Something Brown made of Cabbage

Hello all! Thank you for being patient with me lately as the winter has stood in the way of my posting to this blog!  The blog has been getting quite a bit of action lately, so thank you to all who are spreading the word.  This week, I'd like to bring you something truly disgusting- and I hope you'll enjoy it!

Last season we put on a production called "The Government Inspector."  It's a pseudo-period piece that takes place in Czarist Russia.  We find our protagonist at the inn. He has spent all of his money, and is begging the innkeepers wife to allow him to charge one more meal to his account.  She offers him a variety of dreadful things (including cabbage pie and 'something brown made of cabbage' ) from which he chooses a bowl of soup.  Only the bowl of cabbage soup (with chicken feathers) is eaten on stage, but the rest of the menu is pulled out for display.

The soup was a bowl of chicken broth containing a preset feather, but the cabbage pie and something brown were up to me. 

Mmmmm. Delicious. Who wouldn't want to eat that?

 For the cabbage pie, I started with some hot pour vinyl that I found in our kitchen. Our previous craftsperson had made up a batch of the vinyl with sawdust mixed into it, and I liked the texture.  I re-melted the vinyl and poured it out onto a cookie sheet. Once it was cool, I used scissors to cut it into thin strips, like sauerkraut.  I made the crust from Great Stuff. I like to use it as pastry sometimes because it has interesting texture, and is strong and lightweight. I made a blob of it on a sheet of plastic, and cut it to shape when it was dry.  Before painting it, I gave it a coat of white glue so that the paint would stick 

As you can see from the photo, the pie is sewn together. I still have not found an adhesive that works with hot pour vinyl, especially when it is in such small pieces The stitches were not apparent onstage, and allowed the towering pie slice a bit of wiggle.

The 'something brown' was made with hot pour vinyl also, but I wanted it to have a different base.  Under this pile of vinyl sauerkraut and sauce, there are several patties made from baked salt dough and spray painted with Glossy Wood Tone.  The result is a delightful "ewww" from most people who see it.  The hot pour vinyl really gives it the oily sheen that terribly greasy food needs, and the different tones and textures seem to remind people of the worst casserole of their lives.  Mission accomplished!

Read more