animal sculptures

Paper Mache Hippo Wall Hanging is Finished

ShareThis is the second in the planned series of display masks/wall art/? – I haven’t quite figured out what to call them yet (suggestions welcome, as always). I’m happy with both the cougar and the hippo. They’re now hanging on my office wall, and I enjoy their company. Black Bear is next. I’m also enjoying [...]

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Ploughshare Tortoise Sculpture, Stage Two

ShareThe ploughshare tortoise that I started a week ago has been progressing slowly. I blame the rain. Everything seems to slow down at my house when we have unending clouds and rain – it just seems like the best time to curl up with a mystery novel and hibernate for a while. However, I have [...]

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Endangered Tortoise Sculpture, Stage One

ShareToday I started a small sculpture of an endangered Ploughshare Tortoise, (Geochelone yniphora) — also known as the Angonoka, Madagascar Angulated Tortoise, or Madagascar Tortoise. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about endangered animals lately, and I found the story of this tortoise in Jane Goodall’s book Hope for Animals and Their World: How [...]

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Painting the Chimp

ShareRecently Carmen asked me why I like using Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid for painting my sculptures, so I thought it would be fun to show you how I use it. I confess – I don’t feel very comfortable using a brush, so my painting technique feels more sculptural than painterly. I put on color, rub [...]

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New Paper Mache Book Is Finished!

ShareAs you may know, since last November I’ve been working very hard to create my new book, Make Animal Sculptures With Paper Mache Clay. Now, (finally!) it’s finished and it’s available on Amazon.com. You can see the cover image on the right, in the sidebar. The table of contents is below: You can search inside [...]

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Begging Dachshund – Project #5 in New Paper Mache Book

ShareThis video is part of a series showing the projects in my new book Make Animal Sculptures With Paper Mache Clay. (The video was made before the book came out – it is now available on Amazon.com) In this video I introduce you to the fifth project in my upcoming paper mache book. The begging [...]

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Spotted Piglet – Project #4 in New Paper Mache Book

ShareThis video is part of a series showing the projects in my new book Make Animal Sculptures With Paper Mache Clay. (The video was made before the book came out – it is now available on Amazon.com) In this video, I introduce you to a spotted piglet. He’s the fourth project in my upcoming book [...]

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Emperor Penguin Family, Project #3 in New Paper Mache Book

Emperor Penguin Family - Project #3 from New Paper Mache Book

ShareThis video is part of a series showing the projects in my new book Make Animal Sculptures With Paper Mache Clay. (The video was made before the book came out – it is now available on Amazon.com) In this episode I show you how the emperor penguin family is made, using patterns, some Styrofoam cubes [...]

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New Gallery Page, Plus Rant About 18-hr Bus Ride

ShareI’m back from my short vacation, and this morning I took all new photos of my recent work so I could create a new online sculpture gallery. Please check it out and tell me what you think – all comments, as usual, are welcome. Now that my visiting is done and the long-awaited gallery page [...]

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Two New Lion Cubs

ShareMy last two life-sized lion cubs are finished. This one is sleeping with her head on one paw. Her brother, below, is stalking one of the other lion cubs from the same litter, which I showed you on a previous post. This is the last of the big cats, at least for a while. They [...]

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Museum-Quality Paper Mache Sculptures

ShareI just found this newpaper article about a Canadian sculptor in Yellowknife who creates museum-quality sculptures out of paper mache. SOMBA K’E/YELLOWKNIFE – Sculptor Monique Robert is marshaling a myriad of monsters in midtown Yellowknife. Her work space on Forrest Park seems more like a whimsical museum than a home studio. Sculptor Monique Robert depicted [...]

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Elephant Sculpture – The Movie

ShareI wanted to do something just a little different today, so I created a how-to video showing the baby Indian elephant coming to life, from beginning to end. This big baby used several of the techniques you’ve probably already seen in other tutorials on this site, but this is definitely the largest project I’ve done [...]

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Bulldog Sculpture is Finished

ShareThe inspiration for this sculpture came from one of my first websites, which contains many original articles about choosing a dog from your local animal shelter. While I was doing the research for those articles I visited many Humane Society websites as well as taking a lot of trips to the shelter in Portland, Oregon. [...]

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Polar Bear Sculpture, From a Busy Week in My Studio

ShareThis polar bear is a small sculpture, about 6″ high and 11″ long. I used a very thin wash of pearl white acrylic paint to give it a soft sheen. The project used the basic techniques shown in the lop-eared bunny sculpture. I did not use a cardboard pattern, as I did for the panda [...]

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Paper Mache Animal Sculptures – Some Basic Tips

ShareI just completed a paper mache goat kid. It’s a study for a larger sculpture I hope to do this summer. I thought it would be a good subject to use to discuss the leg bones, and how they affect the finished sculpture. The Importance of Leg Bones… If you find a photo of an [...]

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