armature

Sculpt a Dragon – Part 1, the Armature

The very first post on this blog, back in November of 2008, was a tutorial I wrote to show how to sculpt a dragon with traditional paper mache strips and paste. I thought it would be fun to make another one, using some of the techniques and materials that I’ve developed in the last 13 [...]

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Paper Mache Jackrabbits

This pair of jackrabbits are made over a solid pressboard armature, and are finished with natural pigments. They are almost lifesized. The huge ears of the jackrabbits were a real challenge – I took a lot of time to make sure they were very firmly attached and strong enough to stand up to a reasonable [...]

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Paper Mache Horse, Day 4

Oops. I missed a day in this series because the paper mache horse had to spend the night in the ER with a cast on her ankles. The plaster board legs were, (I now realize), a bad idea. Fortunately, even when things break with paper mache you can almost always fix it. The water in [...]

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Paper Mache Giraffe, With Some Thoughts About Art…

It took over a week, but my giraffe sculpture is finally finished. The neck was made with a cardboard armature (see the African mask tutorial). It took quite a lot of pushing, prodding, (and some wire “stitching”), to get the cardboard to behave the way I wanted it to. The process wasn’t pretty, and I [...]

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Paper Mache Pitfalls and Rewards

I don’t have time to create a tutorial this week – I’m rushing to complete a paper mache sculpture for an Art About Agriculture contest sponsored by OSU. This will be the first art contest I’ve ever entered (I made my living as an artist many years ago, but no contests…) I’m making a sleeping [...]