paper mache

Scorpiumpkin – A Paper Mache Monster

ShareWow – yesterday “Skwirl” sent us her submission for the Halloween Mask Party. Not a mask, certainly, but definitely creepy! What an imagination! In a comment Skwirl sent in recently, she called this creature a “paper mache pumpkin scorpion thingy.” It now has an official name – Scorpiumpkin. (You can see more of that deadly [...]

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Paper Mache Pin Cushion, Waste Basket and Card Holder…

ShareWe have three more practical paper mache projects for you to see today, all submitted by June Slack. Another one is on the way – for some reason the submission form lost one of her photos, a minor technical glitch. To see the full sized photo of this delightful pin cushion, plus her business card [...]

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How to Protect Your Hands While Working with Paper Mache?

ShareThis morning Liz left a question on a previous post, and it’s one of those questions that you may be better at answering than I am. I’m sure she isn’t the only one who has hands that get dry when working with paper mache. Here’s her question: I have a very practical and basic papier [...]

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Blue Paper Towels for Paper Mache

ShareYesterday we received a comment on the paper mache halloween mask page that I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss. Diane sez: An artist friend of mine introduced me to using blue “shop towels” on a roll for papier mache. They’re great because they’re thick (so the work goes quicker and is stronger) and [...]

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Paper Mache Halloween Mask

ShareYes, I know I’m too old to go trick-or-treating. I’ve been too old for about 50 years… But why should the kids have all the fun? The weird alien mask I made is probably not what you have in mind for your own Halloween costume, but the techniques used in this tutorial will work no [...]

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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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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 Horse, Day 2…

ShareYesterday I started to make a paper mache horse. (See the first post here). To be slightly more accurate, it will, I hope, look like an appaloosa colt when it’s finished. Yesterday I made a full-sized sketch and cut legs from plasterboard, using the sketch as a pattern. Today I used the same pattern to [...]

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How to Make a Paper Mache Giraffe

ShareI’ve mentioned my giraffe in a previous post, but I skipped over the directions because this was an experiment for me. This is the largest paper mache sculpture I’ve ever done, and part of the process wasn’t very pretty. In fact, I stopped taking pictures before the project was complete. There were many times during [...]

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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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Paper Mache Flying Pig

ShareThis paper mache flying pig was a fun project. I won’t give detailed instructions, since it was made primarily the same way that the paper mache bunny was made. You can see the basic shape of the pig below. This is after the second layer of paper mache has been added, but before the details [...]

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Dionysus – A Faux Marble Bust in a Paper Mache Frame

ShareA faux marble bust of the Greek God Dionysus is surrounded by a paper mache frame. The frame was designed to look like an open niche in a garden wall. I started this wall sculpture of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine (among other things) several months ago. It sat on my shelf, almost finished, [...]

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Paper Mache Giraffe, With Some Thoughts About Art…

ShareIt 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 Rabbit II

In a previous post I showed you how to make a little paper mache lop-eared bunny, using newspaper and masking tape to create the form. In this post I’ll show you how I created a Dutch rabbit using Super Sculpey as a temporary internal form.

I’ve been using the newspaper and masking tape technique for years, but it does have it’s drawbacks. It is cheap, but developing small details can be a real challenge. Creating details in Super Sculpey is easy – it’s a wonderful medium for sculpting, but I don’t like the “plastic” look of it after it’s been baked. For that reason, I decided to see what happens if

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