Thursday, October 8, 2009

Cork Maquettes

Don’t throw out those old wine-bottle corks! You can use them for maquette-building.

Blog reader and Art-by-Committee contributor Damien Johnston sent some cool links showing how model builders have used corks for architectural maquettes. Whether plain or painted, they can simulate the rough texture of stone.

Since bottle corks are rather small, you can also get larger sheets of cork from a home improvement store. It comes in foot-square sheets for wall tiles or larger panels for bulletin boards.

Cork Gallery, link.
Cork Models of Rome, link.

Thanks, Damian Johnston.

3 comments:

i, me said...

great idea. some of the images in that gallery are stunning. it's much like your idea of finding small rocks that can become 'mountains' in paintings.
I'd imagine the cork, when light is thrown on it, will give a better feeling of broken reflected light than straight cardboard, sculpey, etc.
I'd imagine painting the cork would change some of the properties

r8r said...

there's something very odd about seeing a classical building with a panel of cork instead of a sculpted frieze. what else could you put in there? Formica? Brushed aluminum? Wood veneer? Birch plywood? Drywall?

Christopher Manzanares said...

And here I just thought that they were neat to collect and smell the old wine on the bottom. Thanks for the tip!