Creek Bed Ready Rocks

The bed of a stream is built from the bottom

A bed is treacherous in that you look through it once it is poured. Anything lying in it will be visible forever, and even the shape of an individual stone can be made out. The package with the highest number of pieces of the whole line is therefore built for precisely this task.

The number and the dimensions

There are thirty-one pieces, 3.5 to 10.2 cm long and only 1 to 2.9 cm high. The flat, low shapes fit under the surface without sticking out of it, and the large number allows a continuous stretch of a watercourse to be covered, not just an isolated spot.

A dry bed and running water

There are two uses. Either a dried-up riverbed is composed from the castings, where the stones stay uncovered and are the main motif, or they are set out in the bed before the model water is poured and stay under the surface. In the second case they have to be glued down firmly and the surroundings sealed, because the pouring compound gets through every gap.

The make-up of a bed

A natural watercourse sorts material by the current: the coarser pieces lie in the middle and in the bends, while the finer ones settle by the bank in still water. When the castings are placed by this key, a bed looks believable even without further work. It can be filled out with fine stone and a piece of driftwood by the outer bank.

Before the water comes

Before anything is poured, it pays off to compose the bed dry and to take a photograph of it. Once it is poured the arrangement can no longer be budged, and the small change that seemed unimportant beforehand tends to be exactly the one that is then most visible. It is just as good to try beforehand how high the surface will reach: a stone half sticking out above the water looks livelier than a bed entirely drowned.