I’ve been working on a chimp sculpture for the last week or so, with no real progress to show for it. Right now I’m waiting for UPS to deliver some more supplies so I can finish the head. However, I did make a poseable armature for the chimp’s hand this morning, and with some minor changes in size and proportions, this could easily work for a human hand, too (or zombies, for that matter). It won’t be covered with the paper mache clay until he entire armature, including that unfinished head, are all assembled.

Cutting wire for “bones.”

I first drew the chimpanzee’s hand onto a piece of paper, using several references that I found on the Internet. Then I cut 10 pieces of tie wire for the “bones” of the hand. Tie wire is cheap, it’s easy to bend and cut, but it rusts. I like using it for smaller items like this, where you don’t really need the strength of heavier wire. However, you do get rust all over your hands and clothes if you aren’t careful. And it needs to be completely covered before anything wet is added to the armature, or the rust will migrate out through the final layer of paint and ruin everything.

Twisting the wires together to form a wrist.

I used two pairs of pliers, one to hold all the wires together at the wrist, and the other one to do the actual twisting. I continued to check it against the drawing to make sure the wires were still in the right place and the fingers were still the right length.

Marking the joints.

I want to be able to bend the joints of the armature before deciding on the final pose. To make sure the bends go in the right place, I wrapped the wire with masking tape, and then marked the joints. The tricky ones are the first knuckle of the hand, where the fingers separate from the palm. Looking at my own hand, I saw that the actual joint is below the line shown on my drawing, which was drawn from the palm side of the chimp’s hand. I want the fingers to bend at the joint, not at the top of the webbing between the fingers, so I marked the joint below the line on the drawing.

Adding aluminum foil.

Now I’m almost done with one hand. I added aluminum foil to the palm and between each joint on the fingers and thumb. The dips between the aluminum foil will mark the joints after all the padding is in place, and the aluminum foil will help stiffen the bones. I made sure to leave plenty of space between the fingers so I can add paper mache clay without making the fingers too fat.

Final taping.

I covered the aluminum foil with masking tape to make sure everything stayed put. Once the hands have been firmly attached to the rest of the chimp sculpture’s armature, I’ll be able to choose a pose I like before adding the paper mache clay.

I do hope the UPS truck shows up today – I’m really anxious to see how the chimp’s head comes out. I hoped that I could use Super Sculpey over the hollow resin skull I made, but it didn’t work. The Sculpey cracked, and couldn’t be repaired. (Maybe I should have read the Sculpey instructions before starting the project!) My current plan is to use paper mache clay over the resin skull instead of Sculpey. The aqua-resin that I used for the skull (and which I’ll also use as a final protective coating) can be painted, so I hope that also means that the paper mache clay will stick to it. However, I wanted to make a few changes to the skull itself before I re-sculpt the head. Sometimes it’s good to have an excuse to start over, because I get a chance to correct errors that I probably would have been too lazy to fix if everything else seemed to come out OK.

And now my break is over, and I’m off to finish the other hand armature.

This week I’ve been doing more experiments, while also playing around with modeling clay portraits. The portraits were just for me, because I’m trying to learn how to do it. You can see a few (and also see what our fellow sculptors have been up to this week) on our Daily Sculptors page.

All of my experiments have involved the same little bunny – the one shown here. I wanted to find out:

1. If a foam shape can be used as a permanent armature for a paper mache sculpture, so that a design could be reproduced without starting from scratch, and
2. If flexible foam can be used as a re-usable form for a paper mache mask, even if it has deep undercuts, and
3. If a UV-absorbing varnish can effectively waterproof paper mache, without causing color changes, yellowing, cracking, or other problems over time.

Paper Mache Bunny, Outside Near Lamb's Ears

We won’t know how well the varnish works until the bunny has been outside for a few months, but the foam portion of the experiment went well. Here’s what I did:

I made the little bunny with modeling clay, and then created the silicone mold and a plaster of Paris support mold, shown below. I had a piece of corrugated plastic left over from building my greenhouse window last year, so I used it for the base of the mold. I used hot glue to attach the base to the silicone mold, and then clamped them all together, just to make there was  a tight seal.

Silicone Bunny Mold

Two part flexible foam was mixed up and poured into the mold, and allowed to set. It was ready to come out of the mold in about 30 minutes.

Foam Bunny

For the bunny shown here, I covered the foam bunny with one layer of fast-setting paper mache paste and blue Scott shop towels. I did not use a release, so the paper mache stuck fast to the foam. The recipe and method of using the paste and shop towels are in the videos about how to make a Pantalone mask. It would have been better to add two layers of paper mache, but I only used one.

Foam Bunny Covered with Paper Mache

The bunny was painted when the paper mache was dry, and this morning I coated it with a solvent-based acrylic varnish with anti-UV properties. The varnish is supposed to be waterproof, and it’s intended for outside use. It’s made by Pebeo. I’m sure there are other UV-absorber varnishes out there that would also work.

Some people use spar varnish over the final layer of paint, but when I tried that the sun cracked the varnish and it all chipped off. Rich uses spar varnish under the paint, right on top of the paper mache. He then paints, and then uses deck sealer over the paint. (I hope he’ll correct me if I got this wrong.) He says he’s had really good luck with this system of waterproofing paper mache. But, just to be a contrarian, I wanted to see if this anti-UV varnish could be used effectively after the paper mache is painted, without any other form of protection. We shall see.

I’ll stick him out under the lilac bush when the varnish is dry. Wish him luck – he may need it.

I’m happy with the way the paper mache covered the foam. I didn’t actually design the original clay model with this in mind, so the details were not exaggerated the way they should have been if I were thinking ahead. (That’s why I only used one layer of paper mache.)

However, since the foam was flexible, it was possible to press the pasted shop towels deep into the lines around the eyes and toes, so he still looks very close to the original. I think it’s possible that I could have used the second layer of paper mache without losing all the detail.

I don’t think this system would be terribly useful for most people, but I think if someone sold paper mache items and had one particular design that needed to be made over and over again, having the foam core ready-made could be a real time-saver. But the piece would need to sell for a price that covered the extra expense of the silicone mold and the foam.

I can also see this being used to make just one copy of a modeling clay sculpture with paper mache, if the piece was “important” enough. The molds and foam are expensive, but not as expensive as bronze, by any means. (I may actually try that, if I ever make a figure sculpture worth saving for posterity.)

Now – for the final question: Can you use flexible foam for a re-usable mask form? To find out, I used a release on another foam bunny, and covered it with paper mache. When the paper mache was hard, I carefully pulled the foam out. It worked, even though there are deep undercuts around the ears and under the chin.

Inside of Paper Mache Bunny

This is also something that wouldn’t be terribly useful for most artists. However, I can imagine a theater prop-maker needing masks for an entire Greek chorus, and needing all of them to be the same. Other mold methods would usually work just fine, but if there are deep undercuts and the mask-maker doesn’t want to use multi-part molds, this method would work rather well. Or if you need several elephants or masks with large antlers, you could combine both ideas – leave the foam inside the horns or trunk, while removing the foam from the face area.

I ended up with more bunnies than any one person needs, but I learned a few things and I had fun with it, even though I’m not quite sure how I’ll ever use what I learned. Someday, though, I’ll bet this will come in handy…

I think it would be fun to have a special post to show off all the paper mache cats that people made following my recent video series. Did you make a cat? If so, I’d love to add it to the gallery on a special post here on my site. If you’d like your cat to show up on the new post, just send me the image, along with the way you’d like your name to appear in the credits.

I know that many of you have already posted photos of your cats. Since I would legally need to ask every single one of you for permission to move your images to a new post (and I’m way too lazy to do that), I’m hoping that you’ll go ahead and send your photos to me even if you already posted them in the comment area of another post.  I will assume that anyone sending me their cat photo is giving me official permission to publish it here on this site.

In fact, I’d like to see your paper mache cat even if you made it some other way than the methods I showed you in the videos. If your cat was made differently, please mention it when you send the photo so I can let people know. We can all learn new things from each other.

“Daily Sculpture Challenge”

My experimenting phase seems to be over, and now I’m trying push myself to get better at portrait and figure sculpture. I am convinced that the best way to learn a new skill fastest is to use it as often as possible — so I’ve challenged myself to create at least one new sculpture a day. If that sounds like a fun idea, I hope you’ll join me.

Since paper mache dries too slowly to make it a good medium for this particular challenge, I’m just going to use modeling clay. If any of the pieces turn out well, I might turn them into small finished works using the methods I used to make my hippo and cougar. I also think it would be fun to try finishing them with the “faux encaustic” method mentioned in the Surface Treatment Workshop book – but I’m really nowhere near actually having anything to finish at this point. What I really want to concentrate on is making as many portraits and figure sculptures as I can, so I can make as many mistakes as possible as fast as possible. An, of course, I’m hoping that will help me improve my sculpting skills.

In fact, I just received another video by Dan Reader, this one on beginning figure sculpting. Just as soon as I hit the “publish” button on this post, I’m going to rip the plastic off the video and watch it all the way through. I learned so much from his portrait video, so I know this one will be good, too.

There’s already an online group called the Daily Painters (Jessie joined quite some time ago, but I don’t know if she’s still a member). But that does give me an idea… It’s always easier to stick to a personal commitment if other people join you. So – would you like to join an informal “daily sculptor’s” group? Any medium, any subject, any size – just to encourage each other to really push ourselves to learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. If anyone decides to join me, we can figure out a way to make it easy to share our daily sculptures. Maybe a new Flickr page, or something…

Most of the daily painters do very small paintings. I think that’s a good idea, so my portraits will be quite small, too – 5 or six inches, or so. I’m now on day three (and only two portraits – I have to get started on #3 soon). Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Small Portrait Sculpture #2

Small Portrait Sculpture #1

Both of these ladies were photographed by government photographers during the 30′s and 40′s. The sculptures are reliefs, and small, so they don’t take much time – at least until I go back and try to fix them and make them better. In fact, now that I see the photos, I see more things I need to fix – but that means I’m learning already, doesn’t it?

(I really dislike the stickiness of the modeling clay I have on hand. I ordered some “Monster Clay,” but it isn’t here yet. It isn’t supposed to be as sticky.)

Anyway, enough rambling for one day. Send in those paper mache cats, if you have one. No deadline, since we can always add more photos to the post, but it would be nice to get them up soon and show them off.  And let me know in the comment section if you’d like to “join” a daily sculptor’s group. (And let me know exactly what you mean by “joining” and “group” too, while you’re at it. This is just a kernel of an idea so far, so any suggestions are more than welcome.)

Thanks to everyone who commented and left suggestions on my last post. I played around with the paper mache clay recipe a bit more, and I really like the result. It’s now smoother, it isn’t sticky, and it holds incredible detail. It’s also less expensive to make, which is always a plus. The one drawback is that it isn’t quite as strong – but I still think it’s an improvement over the original version.

To keep things from getting too confusing, I put the latest video and the new version of the recipe on the previous post.

On another note, I have a bit more information that I can now share with you about the fundraiser I’ve been invited to participate in. I told you about it, very briefly, when I showed you the little mini-mask I made of a puppy who came to visit, uninvited. That was a practice mask, to see what it would be like to do a portrait of someone’s pet. Now I can tell you more about the event itself:

There will be an informal online auction to help a group called the Global Sighthound Rescue. They do wonderful work rescuing greyhounds and other sighthound breeds who are in dire need of help. Seven artists have joined the effort, so there will be seven “winners” at the end of the fundraising event. At the end of the auction each of the seven artists will produce a portrait of “their” winner’s favorite pet.

I hope you’ll click on that link above and go check out the work that’s being offered for this event. These folks do incredible work, and it’s rather humbling to be included among this group. (By the way, if you decide to bid on a mask from me, I won’t mind at all if your “pet” happens to be a baby orangutan or a rhino – as long as it will look fetching as a small display mask, like the one I’ll be making for the event. )

I know you’ll want to learn more about this organization and the dogs they help. Click here to go to their website. If you click on the names of the adopted sighthounds in the right-hand column, you can read their stories.

Now, please go check out the latest version of the paper mache clay recipe. Since so many people have helped with this new version, I think we need to come up with a new name for it. Steve Sack started us calling the original Jonni Clay, but that won’t work any more. I thought about calling it simply “ultimate paper mache,” after the title of this blog. What do you think we should call it?

I do hope you’ll experiment with these two new slightly-altered paper mache clay recipes if you have access to a few cups of powdered ceramic clay.

The clay I used was ordered from Georgies in Portland. It’s their Wonder White clay. I think any ceramic clay without grog would work the same way. (You probably won’t want to order a whole 50 pounds, but that’s the smallest amount I could get. If you want to play with this, call your local pottery supply store and ask if they have any powdered clay).

I haven’t had a chance to try any of this new paper mache clay on a sculpture yet, but I have used paper mache clay that has wet ceramic clay mixed in, and I haven’t seen it crack when it dries – but it’s always possible that it could crack, as Steve suggested sometime last year. (Anything’s possible, right?) Once more people have a chance to try it out and give us their feedback, we’ll have a better feel for whether it’s worth going to the extra trouble to make this version, or if we should stick with the original paper mache clay.

One important point, though – I don’t think you can mix it with a small hand-held kitchen mixer. I’m pretty sure it would burn out the motor. A really heavy-duty stand mixer with a dough hook might work. But watch carefully, so you don’t lose your expensive equipment. (That would make for a very expensive batch of experimental paper mache clay.) It seemed to work just fine today in my food processor.

The specific proportions I used are below the videos. This first video is the latest one, showing the changes I made to the recipe after receiving your feedback. I really like this version, and the recipe you’ll find down below are for this version. The second video is the one I made a few days ago.

Latest Recipe for Paper Mache Clay with Powdered Clay Used as Filler:

• 3/4 cup Elmer’s Glue-All or Rich’s home made glue
• 1 cup Joint Compound (any brand except Dap)
• 1 tablespoon boiled linseed oil (or substitute glycerin or mineral oil/baby oil, instead)
• 1/2 cup powdered ceramic clay
• approximately 1 1/2 cups damp toilet paper, with as little water left in as possible

I have now decided, after using both of these new recipes, that the version using Elmer’s is “faster” when covering a large area of an armature. It goes on very smooth, is easy to spread, and can be sanded when it’s dry. The version with Rich’s glue, however, can be modeled with extremely fine details, and that’s what I’ll be using for eyes, noses, fingers, etc. The detail you can get are truly amazing. Try both ways, and see what you think.

If you’re wondering if this clay is stiff enough to make a sculpture without an armature, I can’t answer that. I haven’t tried it. It might work, but I’m not sure it would dry all the way through. If you try it, please let us know. If you’re thinking about using it with kids, don’t use the boiled linseed oil – it has chemicals in it. Use mineral oil or glycerin instead.

If you try these new versions of the clay, please let us know how they turn out, and if you like them better than the original recipe for paper mache clay. Do they go on smoother, can you get details easier, did I add enough clay, or too much? Does your clay crack or do any other weird thing that we should know about? Let us know.

An idea for a new small business has been floating around in my head for a few weeks, and I’d like your input. Feel perfectly free to tell me I’m crazy. Or not. Honestly, I really haven’t decided myself.

This would be a way for me to expand my own income while also giving me a really good excuse for making more sculptures.

Here’s the idea: I’ve been thinking about making rigid foam copies of a few of my animal sculptures. The foam copies would be positive molds that people could then cover with a few layers of paper mache. Buyers could then paint their sculptures with their acrylic paints to personalize them in any way they chose. So, basically, I’d be providing a base for the sculpture, but not the finished sculpture itself .

Paper Mache Bobcat

Most of the sculptures I’ve already done are rather large and they’d need a lot of foam, (which tends to be rather expensive), so I would probably start with smaller ones, custom-made for the purpose.  I wouldn’t want to do forms for wearable masks, because then I’d have to compete with the mask forms from China.

Gearing up for this kind of enterprise would take money, and a whole lot of research and time. I don’t want to go any farther with the idea if I’m the only one who thinks it would be fun. I’ve been known to be wrong – after all, I would have loved my coloring book when I was a kid, but I’ve only sold about five of them. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t…

Perhaps the most important consideration is the cost of the foam. Most of us get started in paper mache precisely because it’s cheap. And these foam molds would not be cheap.

So tell me. Honestly. No holds barred. Would it be fun to cover a ready-made form with paper mache? Not for a hypothetical “other” person, but can you imagine it being fun for you? If you saw such a product for sale on my site, would you ignore it, or would you be intrigued? If it seems somewhat interesting, is there any particular sculpture that I’ve already done or might do in the future that you think I should make available as a mold? What price do you think a reasonable person would pay for such a thing? Have you ever seen anything like what I’m describing for sale somewhere else? And, most importantly, should I just consider it another one of my crazy ideas, and move on?

I can’t wait to hear what you think.

And by the way, if you’re working on a cat from our previous series, but you haven’t shown it off yet, please do. I’d love to see how they all turned out.

It worked. The paper mache head did dry, even though the paper mache was applied over a wet clay form. But that wasn’t really the part I was most interested in. I wanted to know if I could cut the paper mache into two pieces to easily remove it from the clay, and then put it back together again without the paper mache’s shape getting distorted in any way. I worked fast, and the head went back together again just fine.

We already knew that we could use a modeling clay or Super Sculpey form for the fast-setting paper mache, because that’s how I made all the masks that I teach people to make in my new mask book. And we already knew that we could also use paper mache clay over “real” clay, because that’s how I made the old lady mask.

What I wanted to know with this experiment was how the materials would work on a sculpture that would need to be cut in two in order to remove the clay. I had already done a very small experiment along these lines when I made the Plague Doctor Mask, but I only cut it down the underside of the beak – so another experiment was needed. I did know from a previous “experiment,” (my giraffe head) that if you remove the paper mache from a clay mold and allow the two pieces to dry without sticking them back together quickly, the paper mache will warp and the pieces might not fit.

I might add a bit of paper mache clay to this head to make some slight alterations to the shape. So, why not use paper mache clay entirely, instead of using the fast-setting paper mache paste and shop towels, you might ask? Because we wouldn’t be able to take the “Jonniclay” off the form until it was completely dry – and when it’s completely dry it’s so hard I’d need a power tool to cut it.

Anyway – here’s my YouTube video Paper Mache Head, Part 2:

I’m doing an experiment today. I’m covering a damp clay sculpture with paper mache, because I want to ship the paper mache head to my Dad in Washington. The water-based clay is heavy, and it would probably get ruined if I tried to ship it anyway.

I’m using the fast-setting paper mache paste and shop towels that I use for my paper mache masks, but I’ve never tried using them over anything other than modeling clay or Super Sculpey — and I’ve never tried using them on a piece that will need to be cut apart and put back together again after the clay has been removed. I sealed the wet clay with wax, but I won’t know until tomorrow if the wax sealed it well enough to allow the paper mache head to dry.

We know that paper mache over modeling clay works for masks, but if we can also get it to work in the round, (if the pieces go back together again without the shape getting distorted), it means we could make a permanent copy of any clay sculpture without first making a complicated multi-part mold and pouring plaster – or firing them in a kiln, or hiring the services of a bronze foundry. Cheap art, simple art, without armatures made out of crumpled paper or masking tape. I like it.

Just in case this paper mache head experiment actually works, I hope you’ll start thinking about how we could use this process for other sculptures, and how we could fill the hole left after the clay is removed. Small sculptures could be left hollow, but larger ones would need some inner support. Ideas?

I made a short video to show you a little portrait mask I made of a puppy. This happy guy invited himself to my house last weekend. (I saw him later, tied up in front of a house a few blocks away — so I’m happy to say that his owner quickly found him after Animal Control took over).

This is a practice mask. I felt the need to practice because I agreed to offer a pet portrait mask for an upcoming fundraising event for an animal rescue organization. I think the pup came out OK – but as always, I’d be happy to hear your input. I’ll tell you more about the fundraiser in a week or two.

I also want to talk a bit more about Pinterest, down below the video.

You can find my book “How to Make Masks!” here.

Now, my evolving thoughts about Pinterest:

Several weeks ago we had a lively online discussion about Pinterest and the copyright issues that are involved with this and other popular sharing sites. I read everyone’s comments, added many of my own (I do get verbose at times), read a book called Curation Nation, and read many web articles, including this one at theAbundantArtist.com. I also whipped together a “test” website to see if Pinterest really helps new sites get traffic.

After all that, here’s my current thinking about Pinterest:

• My test site does prove that a brand new site with almost no other inbound links can get traffic by uploading images to Pinterest, if you also take the trouble to “follow” other boards that were created by people interested in similar works. I don’t mean you can get floods of traffic – but for a brand new site, 10 to 20 visitors a day is better than no visitors at all. If I worked at a bit harder, maybe there would be more.

• That said, I don’t think any website should rely entirely on Pinterest for traffic. Because of that, I’m also using YouTube, Onlywire, Facebook, and Google Plus to get links to the new site. Those links might eventually help the site get ranked for it’s keywords on Google. Those things take time, though. Pinterest seems to be faster, although I don’t know if I’ve made any sales yet from that traffic.

• I still am not sure that pinning other people’s images is legal. Since it is against the Pinterest terms of service to do that, I have to assume that they aren’t sure either. I’m not sure that anyone is sure – the Internet seems to be moving so fast even the lawyers can’t keep up. So, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, I will only pin my own images, (as the Pinterest member agreement requires). If I see nice artwork on Pinterest that has been uploaded by the artist, I might repin the image. I assume that people agree to that when they pin their own work.

• Getting found on Pinterest seems to involve two things – adding comments that include keywords, and following other people who like the same kinds of things that you do. For instance, if you go to the site and do a search for “paper mache mask” you’ll probably see several of the masks I uploaded, because I was careful to include those words in the comment section.

• “Following” people (and, hopefully, getting your images repinned by the people you follow) seems to be one of the keys to success, but finding artists who pin their own work isn’t easy. Most of the paper mache items I found were posted by people casually surfing the web. So, if you happen to have a Pinterest board that is clearly marked as your work, please put the URL in the comment section below and I’d be happy to follow you. (Speaking of which, you can find my boards, and follow me if you want, at http://pinterest.com/jonnigood/ )

We probably don’t need to go back over any of the copyright issues, since we covered that extensively in the previous post. So – if you would like me and other readers to follow you on Pinterest, and if you have at least one board that clearly includes images of artwork you created, feel free to let us know in the comment section below. Maybe we can all help each other get some traffic. Probably not a whole lot of traffic, but still…

And in a week or so, I’ll tell you about that fundraiser, including info about the other artists who are participating, what the funds will be used for, and how you can participate. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Well, it took a bit longer than usual, but my paper mache cat is done. I made a video showing how I painted my cat, (shown below). If your paper mache cat is a portrait of a different feline, or if you added less texture,  you’ll want to use different colors and probably smaller brushes.

I used very large brushes and a very loose painting style because of the rough texture I added to my cat. If I did this cat again, I probably wouldn’t add so much paper mache clay, but I do like the way she turned out.

She’s now sitting on a table with a few other cats, and I’m beginning to wonder if that bobcat’s intentions are honorable…

How I Painted my Paper Mache Cat:

And here are a few more photos – a close-up of the finished cat, the photo I looked at when painting her eyes, and the original photo that I used to make the pattern. If you missed the previous lessons, you can find Lesson #1 of the How to Make a Paper Mache Cat here.