This video is the second in a series showing off the projects in my upcoming book Make Animal Sculptures With Paper Mache Clay. Sorry about the cat – very unprofessional of me. But at least she wasn’t making as much noise as usual…
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This is slightly off-topic, but have you read Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life I’m only half-way through it, and I already feel like I want to read it again. Do you ever run across a book, entirely by accident, that you know will somehow change your life? This is one of them. It fits right into the question so many of us are asking ourselves right now “What’s next?”
Now that my book is almost finished (still have to find a way to end it gracefully) I plan to start a series of horses. The horse I made for the book was so much fun, I’ve decided to do many more. I think I’ll borrow Xan’s idea and try to find a good cause that I can support with the sale of the horses. They’ll be fairly big, so the “cause” will need to be local. So – that’s my new challenge for the year. Wish me luck.
Today I’m posting a short video to introduce you to Project #1 in my upcoming paper mache book. You haven’t heard much from me in the last three months, because I’ve been working so hard on the new paper mache book. I think it will be called Make Animal Sculptures from Paper Mache Clay. I’ll let you watch the video first, and then I’ll tell you a bit more about the book and what I hope you’ll learn from it in the section below the video:
As you can see, (I hope – I’m obviously still trying to learn how to focus the video camera…) the first project in the book is fairly simple. I call it “the practice chicken,” because that’s exactly how I hope readers will use it.
(I actually thought up the idea of using videos in my posts because people claim it’s so much faster than writing. Hah! This one took me all day yesterday, and all morning today. I do hope they’ll be easier, and better, as I learn how to actually do it right. Wish me luck…)
I tend to buy lots of how-to books, and I think it’s frustrating to read a book all the way through and still not feel that I know how to use the skills the author tried to teach me. That’s why I think it’s so important to start off learning each required skill by doing a real project. I think the best way to learn is by doing. I organized the book so that each project will be just a little more challenging, but all the projects will use the same basic skills so readers get lots of practice. I also encourage readers to try the new skills with their own projects. After all – the true success of any how-to book comes when the reader takes what they’ve learned to create something entirely their own.
Writing a book like this has been an incredible adventure. I’ve learned the value of doing things over (I used to hate doing things over – now I actually enjoy seeing how much better things turn out when you get a bit of practice…).
Just as soon as Jessie (my book designer/typesetter/general book-creation expert) is back from vacation–she took a bit of time off the book project to prepare for the exhibit of her oil paintings–I should have all the chapters completely written and all the photos taken. Then she’ll take over and turn it all into a book, which should be available on amazon.com by the end of April.
Since my part of the book is almost all done, I’ll spend my “free” time learning how to make videos. After you’ve met all the “characters” in the book, I’ll start some short how-to videos to show you the basics of applying paper mache clay, building armatures with patterns, etc. Since I’m very new at this video thing, feel free to offer advice on how I could do it better. (Yes, I will be working on the focus problem… )
And if there’s anything you’d like me to show you how to do (and if I can do it in about 6 minutes or less), your suggestions will be more than welcome. As always, I value your comments.
Today I’ll show you how I made these butterflies, which have rather surprisingly thin wings, yet don’t break when you drop them on the floor (I didn’t mean to, but at least now I know they’ll survive a bit of clumsiness…)
Elephant, Waiting for Paint - and Butterfly
I don’t normally make tiny things. I don’t collect tiny things, either. That’s just me. Today, however, I decided that I needed a butterfly for the elephant I designed for my book project.
I went to great lengths to make my elephant’s skin dry and cracked looking, and It will soon be painted all gray. I think the pachyderm needs some color and softness for contrast, so I made the tiny blue butterfly shown above. It will soon be sitting on Elephant’s trunk, unless it seems just too cutesy. We’ll see.
Since the little butterfly came out OK, I thought you might enjoy seeing how easy it is to make one. I don’t know exactly what one would do with the little insects — although it would be fun to put an entire “collection” of rare species in a deep frame, (no net required). Or they could be hung on a mobile — but not within reach of a baby, since they aren’t edible.
The butterflies are made with the new paper mache recipe (click here for details). You only need a small amount per bug, so one recipe will make lots. Like may be 50… Be sure to bookmark this page so you can find it after you’ve made a larger sculpture and have a little bit of clay left over. Or invite some friends over for a butterfly-making party. » Read more: Make a Delicate Butterfly with Paper Mache Clay
I spent my Christmas vacation making this frog out of newspaper, masking tape, pipe cleaners and paper mache clay. I show you how I did it below. If I did it again I’d use stronger wire in place of the pipe cleaners so I could get thinner fingers and toes, but that’s the only part of the process I’d change.
Real Frog
This is the real frog I used as my model. I’m sorry I don’t know what kind of frog it is.
You can clearly see that my version won’t win any awards at the science fair – but if you spend just a bit more effort than I did you could reproduce the colors and patterns with more accuracy. And with heavier wire instead of the fuzzy pipe cleaners, skinny toes would be possible, too. Wouldn’t it be fun to create a display of poison dart frogs in all their colorful varieties? » Read more: Make this Frog with Paper Mache Clay
It’s really cold outside this week, but we don’t have any snow down here in the valley. Even Mt. Emily has only a light dusting of snow. But I do have a bit of winter cheer in my house, because I made this goofy little snowman by stuffing a plastic grocery bag with old newspapers and covering it with paper mache clay.
The idea for using a stuffed plastic bag for a form came from Laurie Baker’s guest post showing her wonderful Halloween pumkins. My snowman isn’t nearly as big, since Laurie used garbage bags and I used grocery bags, but there’s no reason you couldn’t make a really big snowman if you wanted to. » Read more: Fast Snowman with Paper Mache Clay
A few weeks ago, Donnisha asked for some tips for making the 7-hr paper mache bluebirds into Christmas tree ornaments. What a great idea! I wrote the bluebird tutorial almost exactly 1 year ago so folks would have a fast, easy way to create a present for someone who loves handmade gifts. (I think most of the bluebirds actually ended up on wedding cakes–a use that had not occurred to me until I read your comments.)
Today’s post is all about little bluebirds that can hang from a tree. They look almost exactly like the ones I made last year, but the one I made today took 4 hours instead of 7. If you wanted to, you could probably make enough for a small Christmas tree in half a day.
I cut down the time with two new techniques. First, I used my paper mache clay recipe instead of torn paper strips and paste. The clay goes on in just one layer, and it doesn’t need to be sanded because it goes on smooth. (You only need about 2 tablespoons of paper mache clay for each bird. The recipe will make about a quart, so you can make lots of birds.
Then, I found a way to hold the birds so the entire surface could be covered in one go. That cut down a lot on drying time.
I know you figured this out already, but all your birds don’t have to be blue. Canary yellow and cardinal red would look lovely on your tree.
12/10/09 – I’m editing this post and putting up a new video, because I’ve now had a few months to play with my paper mache clay recipe. The new video will give you instructions that you’ll need to make sure your toilet paper rolls contain the same amount of paper as mine. The new mixing instructions are also easier to use.
Note: This material does use items from the hardware store that are not rated for use by children, and the resulting clay is not edible. Small children should not use this clay.
I used this clay to make all the big cats you can see on my gallery page.
If you try this recipe, please let me know what you think.
Edit – 11/3/09. While you can speed up drying by putting your sculpture in a warm oven, I don’t recommend using a temperature higher than 150. The heating clay puts out some fumes if you go higher than that. I’m not a chemist or a doctor, but it doesn’t seem like something you’d want to breath for very long. Also, any masking tape that is still exposed will unstick itself in the oven, even at a low temperature. I recommend that you be patient and allow your clay to air-dry naturally.
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