Bear rug to be used as a color reference and planking in place.
Note how badly faded the head and upper body is.
As with the bison, I began by vacuuming the mounts. I did not use a screen because the fur didn’t break off when vacuumed so I felt I didn’t have to use it. That makes the job easier and I was able to get that first step done on both mounts quickly. After that, I made up a 50/50 mixture of ethanol and water with which to wipe down the mounts. I dip square cotton wipes into the alcohol/water mix, squeeze out the excess, and wipe the surface of the fur.
Wiping down the bear with an alcohol/water mixture.
There is a surprising amount of grime on the fur-especially surprising since the diorama is enclosed in glass. The grime is dark and black. I am reminded of the stark difference I saw in my anatomy labs between human lung tissue from urban dwellers vs. country dwellers. Urban dwellers-even the non-smokers-have dark black lung tissue, while country dwellers have the pink tissue one would expect to see. What I am wiping off, I think, is 65 years of urban air pollution that has found its way into our dioramas.
With the bears cleaned, I am ready to start spraying the dyes. Though before I closed up for the day, I tried to paint some of the crowberry plants a light pinkish color to match the background painting. And while I got some saturated color onto the plants, they are generally still too dark to match the background color. I have a thought about how to get them bright enough and will test that tomorrow as well.