Burnt Grass

Scorched grass at the end of August

A straw brown tone with no green left in it belongs to places where the sun beat the water. A south-facing slope, an embankment above a gravel pit, fallow ground behind the last farmstead, or a parched steppe a column has driven across. The color is warm enough to give away summer heat on its own, without the scene needing anything else.

The turf has a coarse fraction, so once glued down the surface stays irregular and the shadows in it create a natural pattern. That is precisely what sets it apart from fine turf, which gives more the impression of a trimmed lawn. Inside there are 945 cm³ of material, which is 57.7 cubic inches, and the pigment resists water as well as fixing solution.

Where it works best

It does the most work on transitions. Where a green meadow gives way to bare ground, the scorched shade supplies the strip that makes the difference between a toy and a convincing landscape. It serves just as well on the roofs of thatched buildings, on a bundle of hay by a barn, or as dried stalks between the rails of a siding.

It is applied into a layer of glue and the excess is tapped off. For a result with more depth it pays to lay a darker base first and sprinkle the scorched tone only on the high spots, where the most sun would actually fall. The material is not tied to one scale.

What is left after work only needs closing up well and keeping away from damp. The material does not age, crumble or grow mold, so it will wait for the next build with no loss of properties. If the grains cake together, they break up with nothing more than a shake and usability does not suffer at all.