Let there be light!

Oil Lamps:

Rob and me were assigned the lighting to be one of our focal points. While I was making the comfy chair Rob made a start on the oil lamps we were going to have for in the drawing room.

Through his research he found that Kerosine lamps were really contemporary of the time, being used in the USA and Europe in 1850 and since Ivan was a very conscious social climber, he would have kept his house pretty up to date in terms of the interior decor.

When the chair was completed I joined Rob in creating an oil lamp. He had made a really good start by using a couple of plastic drinks bottles to create the ‘glass’ lamp, some Styrofoam, cardboard and mdf.

He has taken two ends from a bottle and glued a Styrofoam oval between them. The bottom bottle has the lid glued in place and painted with gold with pin pricks along it as his autocad design suggested. He has included a gold crown like trimming as decor, covering away the joins. The next bottle above that is glue nose down to the Styrofoam, a notch is removed from the top of the foam to make room for a candle wick. The body of the bottle fits into the top part with the neck and bottom cut off, the opening at the top would be where the heat can escape.

Already the lamp was looking authentic. We cut off the end of a nail and painted it gold and fitted it to the side of the lamp as the key in which one would turn to switch the lamp on. Rob was considering putting a mirrored back on the mdf but decided against it due to the lack of time we had left.

After a discussion we found that there was something not right about it and decided that the gold ‘crown-like’ band made the lamp look juvenile and not as classy as it could be. I suggested cutting them down to create a single band of gold around the base, we tried this and decided it gave the lamp authenticity so we glued it down. At times the glue was problematic as we weren’t able to use super glue or a glue gun because it would melt the Styrofoam so we had to use pva instead which took a while to dry, we found ourselves a lot of the time holding the lamp together or taping it up with masking tape.

We needed to create a form of light in the lamp, something that wouldn’t be dangerous but would provide us with the right sort of light that would show realism. We had the idea of using LED bulbs but then had the problem of where to put the battery pack on the light. Rob though of the idea of using fake candles that has an LED bulb within it. So Rob went down to the 99p store and bought two fake candles.

Carefully, the bottom of the lamp was removed and the Styrofoam was carved away to create a hole wide and deep enough to fit the battery and switch inside it, the fake wick and wires were hidden in the neck of one of the bottles were the top met them Styrofoam base. We painted over the battery case with gold paint to blend it in with the rest of the lamp, making sure we didn’t paint over the switch. Rob thought a way to reach the switch would be to take off the whole of the bottom of the lamp. My idea was to take the bottle lid off the bottom, which Rob had glued, and the hole would be wide enough for us to stick our fingers through to press the switch. My idea was as success so we set to work in making that achievable.

Once the candles were in all that was left was to drill them into the wall. We positioned them either side of the mirror in the drawing room, we thought this was best as it made the room look symmetrical and it added grandeur to the wall.

Hand Lights:

The lighting in the study was to be kept at a minimal so death could be portrayed as dark and sinister as it could be and the decision to have candle light in the room was made as a group. Rob and me decided that since the wall was to be holding out candles why not make hands holding the candles from the wall. We thought this was relative to the constant symbolism used throughout Baroque interior design and it related to the book where Ivan describes hands grabbing him. They also link to the feet on the comfy chair as they are claws and appear to be somewhat sinister hands.

We queried the best way to achieve this and found ourselves consulting Simon. He suggested live casting a hand. Since I was doing the lighting my hands were quick to be elected.

He created a cylinder casing to go around my hand for my hand to be cast in, making sure it was a bit bigger than my hand to my hand would never be at risk of touching the sides.

We went down into the ceramics room where Simon helped us through the casting process. We used a substance called Alginate to cast my hand, this was mixed 1 part Alginate powder and 1 part water which he mixed for a few seconds in a pot. Once the Alginate was mixed Simon had to pour it in the tube and I had to quickly put my hand in there, careful not to touch the sides. I had to hold my hand in a cupped sort of position so the candle would sit in my palm. The Alginate took about 5 minutes to set and when it had set it had gone a hard rubbery texture. Because of this new texture I was able to wriggle my hand out of the tube without ruining the mould.

Once the mould was made we mixed up a bowl of plaster to pour into the mould. We started with a bowl of water and sprinkled plaster powder into the water and gradually the level of powder reached just under the level of the water, this was when we knew we had enough plaster. It was then stirred thoroughly and poured into the mould. We poured in a bit then swilled it around in the mould to make sure any cracks were filled. When the plaster reached the top of the mould we gently banged the mould on the worktop to make any trapped air bubbles rise to the surface.

Once the plaster was set (after about an hour) the cylinder was cut away from the mould and a long incision was made through one side of the mould from top to bottom. This allowed us to open the mould and carefully take the hand out. This process was then taped back up with the cylinder placed back on and repeated for the other hand.

Once both hands were out we decided to paint them gold to continue with the decadent Baroque theme and also symbolising Ivan’s wealth, money in his hands.

Once this dried we dusted the surface over with graphite powder to give them a dirty, sooty look.

We wanted the overall look to seem as though they were well used so to achieve this we decided to melt candle wax all over the hands, creating long drips of hardened wax, the candles were also quite small to represent the wear of them.

Once the wax was all melted were able to drill them into the wall. Rob drilled a hole through the wrist of each and put raw plugs in to stiffen the joint. Unfortunately, when we did drill them into the wall the raw plugs opened up and cracked the plaster on the hands. We were able to repair them though using superglue and polyfiller which we painted over so they were able to stay on the wall. Taking them down however may be an issue!

Additional Lighting:

One of the members of the group had brought in brass candelabra with two plastic candles on the ends. Rob and I thought we could remodel them to fit in the walls. First of all we took the plastic candles away as they looked tacky and unrealistic and took away the metal mechanism that held them and the wiring.

We were then left with plastic notches on the top with a bolt. We painted these gold and tried to match the colour to the rest of the candles. Seeing as they didn’t match up completely we decided to do what we did best – melt wax all over them. We each took a candle and melted wax all over the tops of the candelabra where the candles would be held and while the wax was still hot we were able to position the candles on there nicely.

This was drilled to the wall in the study to the left of the window. This was above his desk and we decided he would have needed a light up there for at night or when his curtains were drawn.