Low Rent Renaissance

These large pieces involve sculpting mortar over burlap infused with industrial grout. The largest piece (below) is about 24" wide. All are designed to hang on a outdoor wall or in the garden.   Ra -- sun god. A merman Mushrooms -- burlap-crete stems, concrete tops. Per request for my wife's recent birthday.

This little swimming pool -- about 12' x 6' x 4.5' deep-- is almost thirty years old and has been refurbished several times. It needed some patching and painting and we almost did away with it, but in the end couldn't part with it. We used an epoxy pool paint this time -- a deeper blue and very pretty, I think. Small, but perfect for a dip in the evening.  Here is a younger me digging that hole.  Paradise days -- my lovely wife and our good dog, Henry.

Current formula for "sculpting mortar"  -- 10 parts sand 6 parts clay dust 2 parts Portland cement 3 parts builder's lime This mix is light and malleable and has held up well for me outside. I sometimes add a little joint compound or asphalt emulsion. I generally mix the dry ingredients in a cement mixer and store it in five gallon buckets. I'll mix a few cups at a time with water. I mix it very damp but clumpy. I'll dip my gloved hand in water and massage a palm full of the mix, which becomes wet and  malleable very quickly.  When I thought of adding clay to an earlier recipe  I searched for  "powered clay," and local shops  didn't know what I was talking about. I found clay dust online sold by the bag at The Ceramic Shop in Pennsylvania.  I get builder's lime at a supplier for concrete products. I cover the work with wet towels and plastic bags to reduce the little hairline cracks that can form as  mortar dries. I've been staining some of t...

Burlapcrete planter, colored with exterior wood stain.   A work in progress. A two sided ferrocement totem pole. I've been experimenting with exterior wood stains on these pieces and have so far been happy with the result. 

A blue moon.

The little pool is finally up and running. I'm using a Remington Solar Ionizer, which you see floating in the left hand corner. Nice just to sit and listen to the waterfall.

Burlap-crete shower finally completed. Concrete stepping stones & river rock. Showing solar water heater.

The sign, shown in an earlier post, was made over a piece of Styrofoam insulation wrapped in chicken wire. (The totem pole in background next to pump house is made of papercrete over a 4x4 post wrapped in hardware cloth.) My mortar for the sign was made with vermiculite rather than sand to keep the weight down (3 - 1 vermiculite to cement with a touch of builder's lime). The sign post was cut from a discarded chain link fence gate, cemented into the ground, wrapped with hardware cloth, then wrapped again with burlap-crete strips. Unfortunately, there is no photo of the wrapped armature. Pipes from discarded gates make for flimsy armatures, and I probably won't use such again. However, it is holding up at this point.  Another lesson learned involves using the coarse sand sold as all-purpose sand by Lowes. The coarse grain is obvious and bothers me a bit. I've got to find a source for small (fifty pound) quantities of finer sand. In keeping with my usual pattern, I'v...