Ageing the Teddy Bear (1)

Keeping with the narrative of the 7 year old boy, I am going to create another prop around this.
As Teddy Bears were popular from the early 1900s onwards I want to create an aged one.

I bought a 1900s style Teddy Bear from the Imperial War Museum a few weeks ago and I want to age this. If I had more time I would have made the Teddy Bear myself, however I don't think that it would have looked as good as, or would be made to a high enough standard as the bought bear.

The most obvious way to show wear and tear on the bear was to replace an eye with a button. So I started to cut the fabric around the eye and after some time it came out. I replaced this with a wooden button.

I then experimented with tea staining the fabric. Once dried I couldn't see much difference in colour so tried watered down brown acrylic instead. This was much more effective so I decided to use this instead.

I decided to stain one side more than the other because I want to base my narrative around Peter (the little boy) dropping the Teddy Bear in the fields where his father was working.

I also wore the fabric down on the right arm as this is the arm Peter holds to carry the Teddy Bear. I cut the wooly fabric first, close as I could to the core of the Teddy Bear. I then sandpapered over it to wear the fabric down even more.