Should you be setting up a large group, such as a tiger tearing open a deer, or a vulture at a sheep, you may represent the liver and other organs in modelling clay or plaster, dried, waxed, and coloured, or by coloured wax alone if the part to be modelled is not large.
SNOW, FROST, AND ICE. — The appearances of snow and frost are imitated in a variety of ways. Pounded white sugar; alum powdered, or put on boiling, and suffered to crystallize; borax, two parts, alum, four parts, burnt in a shovel over the fire; and various other crystalline preparations. Nothing, however, is half so good as using best S.F. plaster of Paris mixed with powdered "glass frosting" — bought from the glass-blower's or artificial eyemaker's — to imitate snow, the powdered glass frosting being thrown upon the foliage and rocks — the latter being gummed or varnished with paper varnish — to imitate ice. Blocks of ice require special treatment with glass and thin paper strained over a framework and varnished to get a good and natural effect. Icicles are best modelled in glass.
WATER AND WAVES. — Water is best represented by "hammered glass" coloured, and streaked and varnished, to the tint required. Birds may be represented swimming by being cut in halves, their upper and under surfaces fixed to the corresponding sides of the glass, or the glass may be cut to receive the body,* which is the most satisfactory, although the most difficult to manage without smashing the glass. [Footnote: There is a black-necked swan (Cygnus nigricollis), from Chili, treated in this manner, in the Leicester Museum.] Holes may be drilled in the glass to allow water plants to come through, or to allow long-legged birds, such as herons, to stand mid-leg in water.
Waves are moderately well imitated by thin paper creased, varnished and coloured, on which white wool "foam" is arranged.
MODELLING FRUIT, etc.., IN PLASTER. — You may, perhaps, wish to model an apple, peach, or plum, to place in the hands of some mounted object, such as a monkey. To do this, you take a natural fruit, which oil, and push it half way (on its longest axis) into a bed of damped and hard-pressed sand banked up all round. At some little distance from the edges of the fruit stick two or three small pegs of wood (points downwards) about half-an-inch long, leaving a quarter-of-an-inch out of the sand. Over all this pour some plaster of Paris mixed with water to the thickness of a paste; when set, lift it up carefully — the plaster now appears with the fruit half set in it, and the two or three little pegs of wood sticking up, their other half firmly fixed in the plaster — oil their points, the face of the plaster, and also the fruit, and laying the half-cast fruit uppermost, pour over it some more plaster.
When set, trim the edges, the complete mould will then part in halves, and the fruit will shake out. Oil the mould inside, and when dry procure some wax — beeswax from the oilman's will do for this purpose — and after heating it carefully, for fear of fire, pour it while hot into the mould through a hole cut for that purpose. When about a quarter full, put your thumb or finger over the hole, and rotate the mould rapidly. Allow it to cool, and on opening the mould the artificial fruit will drop out, and may then be coloured by powder or varnish colours to the tints required.
My friend, Wright Wilson, F.L.S., etc.., surgeon to the Birmingham Ear and Throat Hospital, has very kindly written me a short description of the plan he adopts, which, it will be seen, is a complete reversal of the foregoing:
"With regard to plaster casts of fruit, etc.., a much neater and readier method of making the mould is to mix a sufficient quantity of beeswax with resin in a pipkin over a slow fire. It must be used whilst just lukewarm by either dipping the fruit — say, an apple — until sufficient adheres to form a good strong coating. When cold (dipping in cold water will readily make it so), the whole can be cut through with a sharp knife, the halves of the fruit come out easily, and a perfect mould in two halves is thus obtained. Fasten the halves of the mould together with string, and smear a little of the warm material over the joint to hold it together, and cast your model (into this, through a small hole made for the purpose) in the usual way with plaster of Paris made rather thin with water. When set, place in a little warm water, when the mould easily strips off, leaving a model of the most perfect kind and at a small expense, for the mould can be melted up and used over and over again."
Glue may sometimes be substituted for the wax.
The advantage of being able to fall back on this system is obvious, especially if the modelled fruit is to be placed in a position exposed to considerable heat. Of course, the plaster model must be coloured to nature, and, as I have before pointed out, this is not one of the easiest things to do. I would suggest dipping the model (when dry) in melted wax to give a surface for colouring, or modelling it in paper.