Foam Cliffs

I once again have to thank my family for their terrific support in this crazy endeavor of mine. My husband Bob really took the reins on this part Without his help and my son Joey's help, I wouldn't have been able to put together such a solid, stable incredible wall of rock. I am so lucky!

After pondering how to create rock cliffs and many videos watched on different methods of working with foam, in the end we just jumped in and started. We loaded up the pickup with as many 4' X 4' blocks of styrofoam as we could and brought them to the school. We had a good chunk of time, Friday afternoon, Saturday and half of Sunday to figure it out and once we had a method, it went pretty quickly. Once the base shape was sketched onto the foam, it was cut out using a lightweight Sawzall.

We staggered the seams of the different layers for strength and also reinforced the gluing with metal "tabs" that were screwed to the sheetrock wall and pushed into the foam. We used these anchors every 3 levels or courses of foam all the way to the top.

Here is a shot of Bob and Joey fitting and gluing a series. we used construction adhesive.

and the Joey's weight on the foam to make a good seal.

Cutting the foam was a messy job as a flurry of styrofoam "snow" accompanied each cut and we were busy with the shop vac trying to contain the mess.

by the end of Saturday, we were almost to the top and getting a little buggy about it too!

Here is a shot that shows the profile of the rock wall and also a lot of leftover foam that will become trees, stumps, beaver dam and bank.

And here is the final front shot. the model that we referenced along with the paintings is tucked under the first shelf of "rock". Now the fun really begins! I need to shape the foam to the shape of rock. It will have to be coated with a paintable medium and painted.